


FalseSymmetry and the Mirror Mystery

by orphan_account



Category: Hermitcraft, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternative Title: Hermit’s Guide on How to be Sketchy as Possible, Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Multiple Dimensions, Mystery, References to PermaDeath, Xisuma trying his best, but not actually y'know doing it, implied minor character death, mirror au, references to offscreen war, what is “tact”
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-08-14 15:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When entities start going missing, lighting glitches get more prominent, and reflections stare back at you in an uncomforting way, there's only, uh, 3 groups for the job. Xisuma with his admin powers, the Sahara Street Detective and his crew of three Watsons, and a faction of very concerned players go their separate ways to attempt to solve this mystery in three very different ways. Xisuma with the lighting, the detectives with their missing entities, and the secret faction of players more concerned about this mirror problem, there should be nothing linking the three cases together... right?





	1. Chapter 1

Xisuma stared at the large swath of darkness in utter annoyance. There was no object above him that could cause such a large, solid shadow, the edges a straight line unlike the fuzzy shadowed outlines of the buildings outside of the aforementioned “glitch.” He blinked heavily under the darkened visor and lifted his arm to look at the console imbedded in the wrist of his armor. It was a model that TFC had suggested called a “PitBoy.” What that meant, Xisuma had no clue, though he decided to take the advice and not to question it. It came in handy when doing admin work, anyway. 

The light levels in the area were entirely correct for what they should be. It was a purely visual glitch. No mobs were spawning in the dark section of the shopping district. Still, despite being a purely visual glitch something seemed off.

Warily, he walked into the lighting glitch, clicking a button on his console screen to turn on a flashlight beaming from a light embedded in the inner wrist of the same hand. The light barely penetrated the darkness, going about five meters ahead of him before being completely smothered out by the darkness of the glitch.

He hasn’t gotten ten meters in when a hand landed on his shoulder, ice cold. He jumped what felt like ten feet into the air, hand drawing to the sword at his hip despite already having shifted into admin mode and being virtually untouchable. He turned on his heel and drew his sword out, creating a barrier between him and whatever had grabbed him.

“Woah, chill!” the person said, backing up instinctively with his hands up.

Standing in front of Xisuma was his counterpart, helmet tucked under his arm with one hand up and the other as up as it could be while still keeping the helmet in place. He had a teasing smile on his face as he watched Xisuma calm down and lower the sword back into his sheath.

“You would think it would be easier for you to be calm in an invincible shell,” Evil Xisuma (though the name at this point didn’t seem to fit as well as either of them liked) joked, “but here we are, nearly killing me because you got a little startled.”

Xisuma groaned, biting back the urge to rub his temples through the helmet. He turned away from Ex with exasperation, making a point to completely turn his back to Ex. The dark expanse still stood in front of him almost to spite him, making the annoyance that was building in him peak.

“What’s got you in a twist, anyway?” Ex asked, saddling up next to Xisuma as they walked in stride. “I can feel the anger radiating off of your suit.”

“The glitches with the world update are becoming more and more frequent,” Xisuma said. “The lighting glitches are especially annoying.”

“Lighting glitches?” Ex said, looking around. “I haven’t seen any, where have they popped up?”

Xisuma slowed to a stop, confusion painted on his face behind the purple-tinted visor. He let Ex overtake him, turning slightly to face Xisuma.

“You don’t see that this entire section of the shopping district is as dark as squid ink?” Xisuma said, more of a statement than a question.

Ex shrugged and looked around. He hasn’t put his helmet on, nor did he have a swirling purple aura that would give away the use of a night vision potion (of which Xisuma had tried and hadn’t had much success with regarding the visual glitch). As he turned back and saw Xisuma confused face, he mirrored the confusion, a sight that made Xisuma slightly sick in the stomach.

“That’s… odd,” Xisuma quietly to himself, yet loud enough for Ex to hear perfectly well.

Ex nodded and shifted his helmet between his hands. Swiftly, he put the helmet back on and looked toward Xisuma expectantly.

/gamemode [EvilXisuma] spectator

* * *

“I could practically  _ feel _ the irritation radiating off of him, Falsie,” Ren said, the laughing tone of his dimmed down slightly in what felt like exhaustion. “Like a swamp of curdled emotion! Last time he was like this was before the War, and this time, all he has to blame is the server killing his plants.”

False wasn’t exactly listening. She was hearing Ren. She heard him say her name, something about a swamp, the war, and plants. To her best guess, he was talking about one of the ambushes, but nobody had really talked about the war and the last person she would think to would be Ren, considering his absence for the majority of it. Still, she didn’t think about it too hard. Better things to be focused on. The main one was her list of items to buy while she still wandered the shopping district with Ren. Purple glass, andesite, some redstone items from Cherry, more wood… she focused on memorizing the list so hard she barely noticed Ren stop dead a few steps behind her.

She stopped with him, looking back to where he stood, feet planted in the brick pathways. He looked in front of him in surprise, worry, and even awe. False only looked on in confusion.

“What’re you looking at?” she asked, walking a few steps back to him.

Ren seemed to snap out of slightly and turned to False, more awe present on his face than the previous emotions.

“This is the biggest lighting glitch I’ve seen yet,” he said to her.

False kept the surprise from showing on her face as she looked to where he was staring. She stared out into the darkness for a long while, silent at the impenetrable shadow. A deep sense of dread overtook her. Slowly, she forced a smile on her face and turned back to Ren.

“I think I’m going to head back to my base,” she mused. “Most of the places I want to shop are in the glitch and… I’m getting a bad feeling about it.” Her thought was interrupted by the ear splitting scream of a purple winged phantom overhead. Ren and False looked up in tandem, seeing at least 5 phantoms circling above them, ready to swoop down at the soonest opportunity. “Plus it’s getting late,” she said with a grimace.

Ren agreed with her silently and watched as she dove off of the small bridge, rocket clutched in her right hand. With simple grace, the wings of her elytra stretched outward and allowed her to glide upward with the downward momentum. The shriek of the rocket setting off paired with her flying upward into the darkening sky.

False set off rockets in quick succession, flying at breakneck speeds back to her base. Diving through trees and between buildings was exceptionally easy with practice. Flying had been something she did a lot and the only ones who rivaled each other for best flyers in the server were Scar, Grian, and False herself. It took no time at all for her to take the dive down the center of her main base, crashing through the waterfall that pooled at the bottom. She hit the ground running in a literal sense, sprinting toward the exit of the center colosseum-like building. 

Her boots made a considerable amount of noise as they hit the paved pathways, her heels screeching with protest at hard turns and pivots. For once she ignored the mobs that crawled their way from the darkness beyond the pathways and just ran in a direct pathway toward her destination.

She rushed through the archway of the train station, breath was stolen from her lungs and chest heaving, throat burning in protest at the quick, shallow breaths she took as the dread coiling in the pit of her stomach tensed into a tight ball of panic. 

False attempted to calm down as she walked toward the edge of the bridge, held high above the mirror on the floor of the station. A perfect crystal-like mirror. She looked down into it with careful eyes, blown wide in a panic that started to consume her.

She saw the tall ceilings, the sparkling end rods, the dark bottoms of the bridges, the stone supports. She saw that everything was in order except for one thing, a major detail and flaw in the reflection that stared back at her, or rather, didn’t stare back at all.

Her own reflection was missing from the perfect crystal mirror. She felt that the tiny particles of calmness that were still holding out in hope shatter as fragile as the mirror below her.

False resisted the urge to jump down into the mirror itself, jaw tightening as she backed away from it slowly, looking straight at the wall instead.

With a straining breath and a sharp, purposeful turn of the heel, she walked away from the train station and back to her base.


	2. Chapter 2

#  Chapter 2

_ “And these will actually work?” _

_ “Of course they will! Just as well as the real things.” _

_ “How can you be so sure of that?” _

_ “Well I did Doc’s, didn’t I?” _

_ “Don’t call him that…” _

_ “Fine, I won’t. What should I call him then?” _

_ “I don’t know! You’re the one that’s good at names like that.” _

_ “I don’t know, False was pretty clever.” _

_ “No, it wasn’t. Don’t lie to me. I can tell when you lie.” _

_ “Then you can tell I’m not lying about these things working perfectly.” _

* * *

“Well, what if they didn’t just disappear,” Joe suggested, mostly joking.

Doc, Cleo, and Joe sat on Cleo’s ship for lunch that day. It had been mostly unprompted. Cleo has been working on restoring her shipmates back to their former glory after having half of them disappear for the third time. This time, Xisuma promised that they would stop disappearing. Considering he has promised that the first time though, she had her doubts. Doc had come down to talk to her about something similar, mostly asking if she was continuing that have problems with entities disappearing, a certain wave of exhaustion coming off of him when he did. Of course, the answer was yes, but she had convinced him to come sit and talk about it over lunch, if anything just to get him to gain a little more energy back into his day before sending him off with an order to go take a nap that he would likely ignore, considering the number of phantoms she had seen around him last night. 

Joe had joined them halfway through their conversation as Cleo started pulling out some sandwiches she had made for herself to snack on instead of eating a proper meal. He was heading over mostly to say hi and check how the restoration process was going. While Joe had armor stands of his own disappear, he didn’t care much for restoring them at the moment and opting to wait until he was absolutely sure the problem had been solved. Considering all the update glitches he’d seen since the first world, it might take a while. The conversation continued to that of the entity disappearances, Doc starting to comment on villagers from the Newlands also disappearing and causing a sort of extinction among the village. 

But then Joe offered up a new idea: what if they hadn’t just up and disappeared.

He was mostly joking. Xisuma had seemed certain it was some sort of glitch. Assuring the others that it would be fixed as soon as possible but he had no telling exactly  _ when _ it would be. Joe had known Xisuma for a long time, though. He seemed apprehensive when telling everyone the information when having a meeting in the new meeting area that was the Hermitville Town Hall, though he couldn’t be certain if the apprehension was because of hiding something or lack of information.

“Hadn’t just disappeared?” Doc repeated, swallowing a chunk of sandwich and lowering it near his lap. “You mean like they grew sentience and just walked away?”

Joe laughed at the idea. He imagined the pufferfish-headed armor stands aboard the pirate ship they sat on aimlessly wandering off the deck and splashing to the bottom of the ocean. 

“I don’t know,” he said, smile broad on his face. “Maybe so! Or maybe…” he lowered his voice and posture, looking up with a mysterious gleam in his eyes, one paired with amusement, “they were  _ stolen _ !”

“Stolen?” Cleo said, laughing. “Someone pirated my pirates?”

The three erupted in laughter and giggles at the pun, Joe nearly choking on a bite of sandwich he had so hastily taken after stating his piece. The laughter barely died down before Doc composed himself enough to get a word out.

“It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s intentionally messed with someone entities,” he said with a cold edge to his tone.

“You’re not starting another war over a bush,” Cleo shot back, leaning forward off of the mast of the ship to point an accusing finger at Doc. “We still haven’t put out the fires from last time.”

“Literally and figuratively,” Joe jumped in, mouth full of food. 

Cleo looked at him in mock disgust, nose crinkled up in an overdramatic way to drive the point home. She considered fake gagging for a moment before dismissing the idea.

The group was silent for a moment, listening to the waves crash against the side of the pirate ship, rocking the ship slowly, back and forth like a cradle. It was calming. Joe could see how Cleo managed to sleep in those uncomfortable hammocks below deck.

“But what if someone  _ did _ steal them?” Cleo spoke up, glancing around at the empty spots where her crewmates once stood. 

“Who would do something like that?” Doc asked between bites. “Seems pointless.”

“About as pointless as the Jingler,” Joe said, a tinge of malice hidden in his tone that offset his usual demeanor.

“Or the Salmon Ghost,” Doc added.

“But that’s exactly  _ why _ it could’ve been stolen!” Cleo said. “There’s been more than a few ”completely pointless” things that have happened here, why not stealing entities?”

“The Armor Stand Thief.”

“Entity Eradicator.”

“The Jingler.”

Cleo and Doc looked toward Joe at his comment, who had taken the chance to take the last bite of his sandwich after the statement. He looked up to see the two staring at him and quickly finished his mouthful of food.

“My bet on it being the Jingler,” he said with a quick shrug.

“It still needs another name for the time being…” Cleo said, trailing off to think a little harder.

The three were silent in consideration, none of them touching their food as they thought. A snap got the attention of the other two as Doc put a finger up, an idea springing to mind.

“Glitch!”

Silence.

“I mean that’s what Xisuma has been calling it,” Doc said, annoyed at the lack of response from his frankly brilliant idea. “If we don’t want the others finding out about our investigation this is the perfect name!”

“Why don’t we want the others to find out?” Joe asked.

“Because it might be one of the other Hermits!” Doc replied.

The two thought on it for a short amount of time, Cleo finishing up her sandwich. Doc still had a bit of his left, though he didn’t have much of an appetite left.

“I like it!” Joe said with an encouraging smile. “And I know the perfect place to take this case!”

“Oh no,” Cleo muttered, a smile on her face as she wiped her hands off.

“Oh yes!” Doc encouraged, tucking the last bits of his sandwich into a napkin to toss later.

“Joeson, Docson, and Cleoson!” Joe cheered, standing up and dusting himself off of sandwich crumbs before standing up tall. “The Case of the Glitch!

“That sounds absolutely horrible,” Cleo laughed.

* * *

Stress sped around her base, in a frenzy of creative energy for the various rooms of the dark-stone castle surrounding her, reaching skyward. The purple crust line glass of the chandelier sparkled down to her workspace as she sketched out ideas on a few spare pieces of paper before rushing off again to put them into action.

As she was sipping she barely took a second to look around until she came across one of the glaciers that spilled out over her base and onto the ledges overlooking the frozen ocean that surrounded the castle and the glowing green and white lab that sunk deeper into the water. She was disheveled from all the running around, hair sticking every which way and cardigan tied around her waist instead of shielding her arms from the freezing biome. She took a second’s pause to laugh slightly over how silly she looked, all ragged and worn down. 

She approached the glacier to pat down her hair some, pulling a hair tie from her pocket and starting the process of putting it into a bun, hair tie held between her lips. All the while she glanced over her reflection without thinking too much over it.

She grabbed the hair tie from her mouth and tied the bun in place, bouncing it slightly to make sure it would stay put. She looked at her reflection once more and checked for any stains on her shirt or pants from wood stain or rock dust. A splotch of glowstone dust on her shoulder, wood stain on her side, coal stain on her sleeves, ice covering her arms-

Stress paused, eyes locking into the frost that curled in intricate patterns along her arm. She lifted her hand to the opposite forearm, tracing her fingers along the patterns. As her fingertips touched her skin, she was surprised to find them at a normal temperature, the only dampness coming from her sweat rather than frost.

The reflection jittered and twitched in surprise, a movement she didn’t realize she was making but ignored as she clasped onto her arm. No cold, the same normal, human temperature. She looked down at her actual arm, not the reflection staring back at her. Normal. No frost. No ice. No patterns. Normal, albeit pale, skin.

Confusion painted on her features, she looked back to the reflection, staring herself right in the eye. Breath escaped her throat, disappearing into a cold mist in the cool air and gasping back into her lungs just as quickly.

Frosted, pale blue eyes stared back at her, no discernible pupil to be seen. An intricate pattern of frost covered the iris and sclera, a snowflake pattern sprouting from the center where, by all means, her pupils should’ve been. She backed up slightly in surprise, shock freezing her core. Before she could fully process her actions, her hand clenched into a white-knuckled first and reared back. Stress threw a shattering punch against the ice, breaking it rather effectively despite the cuts that now decorated her knuckles.

She cursed under her breath, holding her bleeding hand in regret. Still, she couldn’t see her reflection in the ice anymore. As she walked away to bandage her hand, she considered that an improvement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me at endstone-brick on tumblr for more Hermitcraft and Minecraft content! Chapter updates are unscheduled.


	3. Chapter 3

Ren hadn’t seen either player from the southern glaciers in about a week. Needless to say, he was concerned. There was no reason for him to be! They were still talking in chat and their shops were fully stocked (the ones that functioned, that is). He’d seen Hermits disappear for longer every world. Hell, Wels still hasn’t made his return, though he promised to soon in chat. Mumbo has recently gone silent for a week only to come back with no issue.

This was different though. Irrationally so because the only  _ reason _ it was different was because he had a  _ feeling _ it was. They texted the same as they always did, talked about their projects the same as everyone else.

Maybe the difference was despite them disappearing they were both still working on things. Maybe the difference was that Iskall and Stress never said they were taking a break, but just enclosed themselves in their respective bases. Maybe it’s because despite closing themselves off in connected bases, they claimed not to have seen the other. Maybe it was because despite not seeing Iskall, his projects were still being worked on where anyone could see.

Maybe it was because he had seen Iskall once that week, near the middle of the disappearance. 

Ren had been scrambling along the nether tunnels and precarious bridges that some of them still led off into. He was jumping back and forth between his base and Hermitville frequently, constantly forgetting full boxes full of items he needed to transport over for building materials and whatnot. Exhaustion weighed heavily on his movements. He could’ve just been seeing something. It was entirely plausible, though something in his gut told him that it was absolutely Iskall he saw flying into a mysterious new tunnel from the edge of one of the bridges. Same green sweatshirt and brown hair. The only other person who wore green so regularly was Xisuma and in all the years he’s known him, Ren’s only seen X without his helmet twice. Once during the trial and once during the war. The last place X would take off his helmet was the nether.

Ren wasn’t one to take matters into his own hands. He was more the convincing and hoping type. So he did what felt right. Went and got help.

Ren circled the great expanse that was the purple city False had erected in the fantasy district just on the other side of the river valley. The glittering city gave little clue as to where False was. He hadn’t talked to her face to face in a bit, often his offers to visit being shot down. “I’m mining at the moment,” or “sorry, little busy,” was thrown his way more times than he could count. He’d still see her though, making pathways and wandering the shopping district.

She wasn’t doing either of those today, evidently. After ten minutes of searching the city from a bird’s eye view, he landed on the sturdy branch of one of the giant spruce trees, the one closest to the river valley where the skeletal dragon sat half-submerged in the water.

<RentheDog: Hey Falsie where are you?>

<FalseSymmetry: City train station>

The inviting response came as a surprise. He smiled and pocketed the transmitter. He jumped off of the edge of the tree branch and glided back down to the ground, feet hitting the carefully constructed pathway. He decided to walk. It wasn’t far, after all, no need to waste rockets on something so close to where he was.

The city was really coming along. Someone less dedicated than Falsie would’ve called it done a while ago, yet she still worked on it, creating building after building, path after path. Recently she had put in a small wheat field next to the ConCorp mountains and considered expanding. He expected her to be working on the farmhouse that sat next to it but he had searched there a bit ago to no avail.

As he passed by one of the low to ground windows of the smaller buildings, something caught his eye. He turned toward it. His reflection stared back at him, same confused look staring him in the face.

He thought he saw something move from inside the building but… nothing. He looked in and the building was as normal as ever. Ornate wall designs and decorated flooring. Not much was inside in the first place. He quickly shook off the thought and continued on toward the train station.

The station hadn’t been fully implemented yet. The track led here, yes, but the track going this way hadn’t been decorated to completion, still lacking things that linked it properly to the city and phasing between pirate railways to the fantasy ones was difficult. The train station itself had been finished not long ago. False was going through the process of removing work materials from the area and searching the concave areas for any place that would be at risk for spawning mobs. That’s exactly where he found her, perched on top of a ledge high above the ground, shoving glowstone in inconspicuous spaces.

“Hey, Falsie!” Ren called from the ground, cupping one hand around his mouth and using the other to wave at her. “Down here!”

False looked over from her concentrated phase down toward the ground, avoiding looking at the giant mirror she had regrettably made her floor. Ren was standing by the ledge, leaning over it slightly to get her attention. She normally would’ve just glided down without question but she didn’t want to risk letting Ren see her consistent lack of a reflection. Knowing the Hermits they’d probably accuse her of being a vampire or something. Not the worst outcome by far but not one she wanted in the first place.

“Oh hey Ren!” she called, regretting telling him where she was in the first place. She’s been avoiding talking to people in the first place, not wanting to be caught missing a reflection, but she decided that it wasn’t healthy to just shut herself away. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah!” he yelled in return. “Can you come down so we can stop yelling!”

“Uh,” False trailed off. She glanced down at the mirror. Ren wasn’t exactly looking at it in the first place. He wasn’t at the right angle to see her reflection if she even had one.

As her eyes scanned the mirror, she looked toward Ren’s own reflection. The hand he was waving mirrors him to a tee but… it was lagging behind, like a slow camera. The movements were jerky and stuttering.

World lag, she attested it to. Probably something to do with the “lighting glitches.” With ease, she glided down off of the ledge, glancing back at it once she landed. The area was properly lit up now, no chance of mobs spawning and landing on the glass, shattering it or worse. She didn’t know why she cared about the mirror so much. Probably because it took so long to construct. Iron backed mirrors were annoying to build, especially shining the mirror enough to where the iron didn’t shine back through the glass. She should let it go, though. The large mirror was only causing her more stress.

“What did you need, Ren?” she asked, leaning her weight on the rail on the edge of the bridges.

“I was just wondering if you’ve seen Stress or Iskall lately,” he said. He said it with a smile but he didn’t look all that calm about it. There was a nervousness to his smile.

“Why couldn’t you just ask me in chat?” she asked.

“Well, uh,” Ren scratches the back of his neck, his ears turning a light shade of red. “Would it be weird to say that I didn’t want them knowing?”

False considered it for a second, looking at the ceiling while she thought of it. “Nah,” she said. “Makes sense if they’re being weird lately. Maybe they’re planning something secretive.”

“So you haven’t seen them?” 

“Oh, no not really. Not in… maybe a week?”

Ren furrowed his brow in concern. “Same here,” he said, holding back a sigh. “Right, well, tell me if you see them.”

“Will do!” she promised, watching him walk to the doorway. 

As he took off, she let out a tired sigh. It seemed she wasn’t the only Hermit hiding herself away. This was different, though. While she usually spent a while in her base, sometimes weeks at a time, those other two were out more often, or at least Iskall was. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Xisuma around often either, not even in the nether tunnels connecting his many farms. He was probably busy with admin things, though. No chance that he hadn’t seen the lighting glitches as well. 

She walked toward the railing and climbed on top of it, readying a rocket. She gave a quick glance down at her reflection, or lack thereof. When she first saw the lighting glitches, or didn’t seem them and had them pointed out to her, she had felt an annoying tug toward them. Often she felt herself walking toward them without realizing it, not thinking of where she was going. Too many times she almost ran into a mirror without thinking. One too many times she had her hand against the glass and was starting to push.

That stopped a couple of days ago now. She looked into the mirror and didn’t feel the urge to push against the glass. 

For some reason that made her more nervous than when she had that urge in the first place. 

* * *

“Yo, G!” 

Grian looked down from the annoyingly tall house he was still adding too. The silent competition had only just started but had gotten so quickly competitive.

On the ground below him was a wild RenDog, both hands cupped around his mouth in an attempt to amplify his voice. He has a diamond sword strapped to his belt, as most did when entering Hermitville, having to mend the damage of a random patrol that decided the best place to spawn was within the village itself. 

Grian waved, a smile appearing on his face. “Hey Ren!” he called back, turning around and shifting himself into a sitting position, feet dangling from the scaffolding he’d put into place. “What’s up? Or down, I guess.”

Ren snickered and grabbed a rocket out of his pocket. He was kind of sick of yelling today. He effortlessly launched himself into the sky, far above the scaffolding Grian sat on. Grian followed with his eyes, an amused smile on his face. Soon, Ren landed on the scaffolding, almost tripping in the process but getting his ground quickly. He paced over to Grian and sort of crouched next to him, not wanting to sit fully.

“You’re business partners with Iskall, right?” Ren asked, shoulders hunched against his neck with the position he had put himself in, sitting like a perched bird.

“Yeah,” Grian said. “Forget or something?”

“No,” Ren said, shrugging. “I was just wondering if he’s been around to work on stuff lately.”

“Oh,” Grian said. He paused for a bit, thinking. “Well, not that I can remember. I haven’t seen him in a week or so. Oh! He’s built up the Sahara Outpost here in Hermitville though, you should stop by!”

Ren rolled his eyes at the propaganda. “You haven’t seen him personally, though?”

“No, not really,” Grian admitted. “As much as I’ve seen certain things getting worked on by him I haven’t seen him personally. I don’t think Mumbo has either.”

“Huh,” Ren said. “Well, thanks Grian! See ya later!”

“See ya Ren!” Grian said back as Ren jumped off of the scaffolding and flew down toward the walls he was starting to build up around the village.

It was an interesting thought. He hadn’t seen quite a few Hermits personally lately. Considering how much everyone moved around it was normal not to see one or two for a while unless passing by their bases but… now that he thought of it he hadn’t seen at least four Hermits in the past week or so: Xisuma, Stress, Iskall, or False. Ever since the lighting glitches stopped happening, the last three haven’t been seen. Xisuma had been missing for a while, busy with admin duties as the world updated. He expected him to be back after the lighting glitches were fixed though.

Grian stood and grabbed his rockets, leaping off of his scaffolding and gliding down toward the nether portal. He smelled a mystery, and where there was a mystery, there was a profit in solving it.

* * *

OBSERVATIONS:

  * Lack of natural light let in.
  * Fabric covering any and all glass/ice/reflective surface.
  * Zero noise coming from either occupant of the base.
  * All entrances to base set to trigger silent alarm system.
  * Silent alarm system faulty, sets off for both hostile and friendly mobs entering the base.
  * Silent alarm system feeds into small devices kept on the occupants of the base at all times.
  * Iskall seen leaving the base periodically without armor and only at night. 
  * StressMonster seen almost exclusively in castle lab.
  * Both seen testing various experiments, results and details of experiments unknown.
  * One mirror uncovered periodically for experiments kept in lab.
  * Abnormalities in reflections spotted but undefinable.
  * Both occupants appear to track abnormalities spotted in a notebook, notebook yet to be recovered.

Day 9 Report Concluded.

Signed, E.X.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me @endstone-brick on tumblr for more hermitcraft related content! Updates to this fic will be unscheduled.


	4. Chapter 4

DAY 12 EVENTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER REPORTED AS OBSERVED BY EX-SPECTATOR

  * ISKALL wakes up STRESS, looks frantic and maybe excited.
  * STRESS resists being woken up.
  * STRESS wakes up and sits up, facing ISKALL.
  * Audio unable to be recovered due to suit malfunction.
  * ISKALL tells STRESS something seemingly important.
  * ISKALL runs to the nearest nether portal located in STRESS’ base.
  * STRESS joins him within 03:53.43 minutes:seconds.
  * ISKALL holds observation notebook and large bag of items.
  * Contents of bag consist of the following:
    * 4 stacks of stone bricks
    * 3 stacks of cobblestone
    * 1 shulker full of blaze rods
    * 8 stacks of glass
    * 1 stack of obsidian
    * 1 flint and steel
    * 4 stacks of birch logs
    * 4 stacks of wither roses 
    * 6 stacks of birch trapdoors
    * 5 stacks of iron blocks
    * 1 shulker full of redstone dust
    * 10 oak saplings
    * 3 stacks of powered rails
  * STRESS goes back to storage system and retrieves 5 stacks each of the following:
    * Ice
    * Packed ice
    * Blue ice
    * Snow layers
    * Snow blocks
    * Pumpkins
  * STRESS and ISKALL go into the nether portal.
  * STRESS and ISKALL do not return to bases within the 48 hour observation time period.

* * *

Frantic scribbling filled the small office space. Five quills broke at the frantic pace, pressing too hard onto the paper. 13 papers destroyed in a mess of black ink spilled from broken nibs and falling dozing off or spacing out with the pen connected to the paper or lifted at the right angle to drip it onto the page. Start over from the start. Each paper destroyed would have to be rewritten and rewritten.

Xisuma looked over at the screen again, the purple display burning into his eyes. His helmet sat on the corner of his desk, charging through the small black wire connected to the back. His hair was tied out of his face to keep from getting in the way of the papers he was hunched over.

The frantic writing and rewriting were interrupted by the sound of static. His head whipped around in surprise, trying to locate where the sound was coming from, nose wrinkling, brain fuzzy, sleep tugging at the corners of his mind and making him less coherent at the moment. Eventually, the flickering display to his left drew his attention. There was static covering the screen as the noise got louder and louder in a horrible crescent of noise before it all just stopped. No static in noise or visual, the whole ordeal lasting 10 seconds.

Three seconds of silence. Then a series of beeps started. Xisuma paid utmost attention to them.

* * *

Joe got a quick buzz from his communicator as he walked beside Cleo and Doc through the shopping district. He quickly fished it out of his pocket, noting that neither Cleo nor Doc had gotten a buzz. 

_ New Console Message: Open Console to View _

He sighed at the tedious instructions and shoved the phone back into his pocket. Hands now free, he lifted a finger to the side of his glasses, pressing in a small, metal button on the right joint. A short fizzle came from the wires connected to the tiny button as light started to filter through the lenses of his glasses. He rarely used it, not fond of the way a screen so close to his eyes messed with his vision. He squinted slightly at the light but quickly read off the console messages.

Instability markers. Glitch reports. File attachments he didn’t bother reading. An old gamemode change message done by Xisuma, likely for another Hermit controller cambot. The newest message was brighter than the others to indicate it being new. 

_ [EvilXisuma banned by XisumaVoid] _

Joe scrutinized the message in confusion. As far as he knew, EX had been moved to be a cambot recently, though a sentient one. It was likely that the counterpart had just been looking for something to do or had gotten the urge to explore without worrying for food or hunger. To get banned… 

_ <JoeHillsTSD> what happened? _

_ <XisumaVoid> nothing to worry about _

_ <XisumaVoid> something happened _

_ <XisumaVoid> fixing something _

Xisuma wasn’t the best liar, that was a fact that stayed true as long as Joe had known him, and compared to most of the current Hermits, that was a long time. 

“What’s up?” Cleo asked.

Joe looked up to see that he had fallen behind the ground by a quite a bit now, more focused on typing messages to Xisuma than walking. He pressed the button on his glasses again and jogged up to meet Doc and Cleo.

“Was talking to Xisuma,” he said, now walking in pace with them.

“Does he need something?” Doc asked, tilting his head slightly as he looked toward Joe and not toward where he was walking.

“No, I was asking him a command he entered,” Joe said, masking concern in his tone.

“What command was it?” 

Joe’s face crumpled a little. “I don’t think that’s my business to say right now,” he said with a wrinkled nose and dry throat. 

Not a lot of people had access to the admin chat. The only four currently in the world that could see them were Xisuma, Joe, Biffa, Cub, and Tango. The chances of them seeing the command were high, or at least they were for Cub and Joe. 

Xisuma did commands a lot, he ran the world more than most of the Hermits really realized. Update after update, world movements, bringing new people into the world, stomping glitches, entity fixes… but banning someone? He hadn’t done that in years. Joe made a mental note to go talk to Xisuma in person but for now…

Cleo tapped him on the shoulder, bringing him out of deep thought. The three had crossed a small bridge to the right of the large Sahara building that was covered with a big red ribbon and faced a sandstone and brick building built into the cliffside. There was light coming out off the second-floor windows, dim and warm, just barely enough to be noticeable in the afternoon sun. There was a doorbell in front of the big wooden doors.

“Stand in front of the door,” Doc instructed, walking toward the doorbell.

Excitedly, Joe and Cleo stood directly in front of the door. Knowing Grian it couldn’t be anything  _ too _ grandiose, his redstone knowledge passable at best. Still, he had a tendency toward the theatrics like most of the Hermits and his builds tended to reflect that.

Doc pressed on the doorbell, hearing the soft click as it hit the backing of the concave behind it. He joined Cleo and Joe in the two-meter space in front of the door. A chime started up from behind the door. A set of noteblocks. If it was behind the door then where was the stairs up? Was it just a staircase toward the top with no extra rooms?

Cleo had an incredulous look as the tune started to come to an end. Looking at Doc, she said, “Is that the Bi-” before being plunged into cold water from head to toe.

They were rushed through a waterlogged tube, making it hard to tell what was up or down. Was that a bubble column? Before Joe or Cleo was able to register their surroundings, they were shot out onto the floorboards of what looked like an office.

Joe gasped for air and coughed up a bit of water, not prepared for the drop. Cleo, on the other hand, was starting to look a little more blue than normal, rotted skin becoming waterlogged. All three felt a dry warmth flood them as their clothes instantly dried, magic flooding through the seams, sending up puffs of warm, dry hair into their wet hair. 

“Docson?” Grian, or rather, Sherlock Grian, said from the large chair on the opposite side of the room, framed by the desk he was working on and large sets of bookcases lining the wall and creating a partition between the bubble entrance and the office space. “Is there another mystery at hand?” 

“You look like you’ve already started on it,” Cleo commented, walking over and glancing at the papers that covered the desk.

Grian was quick to start cleaning and rearranging them to look at least a little tidier. It didn’t help that his workspace was about as disorganized as his “storage system.”

“And who is this?” Grian joked, fitting into the character easily and barely hiding the amused look on his face at the funny look Cleo gave him.

“This is Joeson and Cleoson,” Doc introduces, just as amused. “And, yeah, we have another case! Or maybe an old one…” Doc gave a sly smirk as Cleo rolled her eyes.

“It’s not the Jingler,” she insisted. “The Jingler at least leaves notes behind.”

“What’s our mystery?” Grian pushed, wanting more information than the little hints the group of Watsons was throwing back and forth.

“The Glitch!” Joe said, taking the moniker Doc had come up with. “The entity disappearance glitch, to be exact.”

“The one that’s been taking all the armor stands and villagers?” Grian asked. The three nodded, seeing him start to think. “Hasn’t that stopped? And hasn’t Xey-soomoo fixed all the missing armor stands?”

“Well it hasn’t really stopped,” Cleo said. “It’s slowed down for the most part but I’ve had to message Xisuma three times  _ this week _ to fix my crewmates again.”

“The vending machine also keeps losing its display,” Doc added. “Plus my bush keeps losing leaves.”

“Are you sure it’s not wilting?” Grian asked. He stopped that train of thought quickly at the very pointed glare he got in return. Guess he’s still not completely over the head bush incident.

“And Xisuma has been super shady about everything,” Joe said.

The other three looked at him in confusion. 

“Is this about the command?” Doc asked.

“What command?” Grian pushed again.

“Give me a second,” Joe said, pressing the button on his glasses once again. The bright blue display stung his eyes. “Hand me some paper.”

Grian picked up one of the pieces of scrap paper in the mess of his desk, sliding a pencil along with it in front of Joe. Joe started twirling the pencil for two seconds before starting to copy down the console log, starting with the /ban. It didn’t take long, but every second he became more annoyed with the glasses display. He’d have to ask for a different system at the next opportunity if Xisuma was still going around and fixing things so much with the update.

Cleo and Doc let Grian turn the paper around to look at it, having read it while Joe was writing it out. The first thing to show on Grian’s face was confusion.

“Who’s EvilXisuma?” 

Oh, he hadn’t really been around much since Grian showed up, huh.

“EvilXisuma is Xisuma’s counterpart,” Cleo started to explain. “He showed up in world number three and tried to destroy the server a couple of times. Not well, obviously. I think he was just bored.”

“Kind of like poultryman,” Doc helped, then turned back on the statement. “Or, I guess not because EvilXisuma and Xisuma aren’t the same people.”

“What do you mean?” Grian asked, his confusion very clearly fake.

“Nevermind,” Cleo butted in, not wanting to have this argument again.

“He was really shady about it after banning him,” Joe said. “EX was put into Spectator Mode about two weeks ago and wasn’t taken out of it again so I don’t know what he could’ve even  _ done _ to get banned.”

“So,” Grian started, pushing the paper log to the side along with a few other papers. He started picking through the pile of papers while talking. “Missing entities. Shady Eeksomi. Missing people.”

“Missing people?” Cleo asked.

Grian paused, still not looking up from the papers. He was biting his lip in a nervous way. “Have any of you seen Iskall or Stress in the last two weeks?” The three shook their heads, understanding slowly painting itself over their faces. “Renson came to me about a half week ago asking if I saw Iskall lately. I didn’t get the chance to ask if he knew anything about it either because he left quickly afterward. I noticed Stress has been gone just as long.”

“I haven’t seen Falsie as much either,” Doc inputted. “Every time I see her, she’s been “too busy” to stay for longer than a minute.”

“So that’s two missing people and two shady Hermits,” Joe counted.

“I think we should do some spying,” Doc said quickly, excitement growing. 

“Or at least interrogating,” Cleo said.

“For once I think you’re onto something,” Grian told Doc.

“For once?”

“We need to see what these suspicious Hermits have been like when no one is around if they’re so keen on avoiding us,” Grian said. “Plus checking on the others to see if we're missing anything. Cleo!” Cleo perked up. “I need you to check with False, Scar, TFC, and Zedaph. Doc, you spy on Renson, Cub, Impulse, and Jevin. Joe, I need you to try to figure out where Stress and Iskall went and check on ErkseimieVood and Jevin.”

“And why are you going to do?” Cleo asked, noticing the distinct lack of fieldwork Grian was left with. “Compile the rest of the evidence.”

“He did well enough last time…” Doc conceded. “He figured out Scar was the Jangler long before Renson or me did.”

“I don’t know how I feel about spying on the Hermits,” Joe said, bringing the attention back around. “It feels like an invasion of privacy. This isn’t like the war, this is their private life.”

“You don’t have to “spy,” technically,” Grian said. “You could just ask them questions in a way where they won’t think you’re up to something. Or just keep an eye on them. Mystery or not, I do need Iskall for something and he’s not replying to any of my messages.”

“We’re just worried about them, man,” Doc added, concern lacing into his tone.

“Fine,” Joe said, a little wariness still coloring his tone. “I guess I need to talk to Xisuma about all this either way.”

“Then operation Glitch is a go!”

“Come up with a better name.”

“Operation Invasion of Privacy.”

“Joe.”

“Operation get out of my office and actually do the job.”

“Fine! Fine!”

“Where’s the door?”


	5. Chapter 5

False sat in front of the mirror, staring at it in contempt. The missing reflection haunted her. Two and a half weeks it’s been gone and hasn’t returned. What worries her most is that she doesn’t actually know where it could’ve gone. For once she had no clue what was happening on the other side of her reflection.

She pressed a hand against the glass. No give. She pushed harder and harder, like if she pushed hard enough maybe she could fall through the mirror-like water and land on the other side. The unreflected gloved hand kept pushing and pushing and-

There was something reflected in the mirror. It wasn’t herself. It was a lanky man with stark white hair and a scruffy white beard, red shirt and suspenders with sunglasses perched on top of a nose, skin too pale. She saw a glint of red behind the sunglasses.

“Ev-”

The mirror broke, spiderweb cracks originating from the heel of her hand. How hard was she pressing against it to make it crack? When did she stop paying attention? She pulled back sharply, grabbing her shoulder, feeling where the skin changed to metal under gloves fingertips.

“Falsie?” a voice called from behind her.

She took a quick breath of surprise and spun around to face Ren, standing directly behind her with a look of shock and confusion, eyes blown wide. Realization struck her, breath catching in her throat and hand gripping tight at her sore shoulder. She stood quickly, grinding glass under her boots and backing up into the shattered mirror, causing chunks to fall from the surface. Her hands stayed in front of her, near the hip.

“How much did you see?” she asked immediately, shoulders pulling up.

Ren took a bit to answer, watering the plants of anxiety and dread planting in False’s stomach. He looked between her and the cracked mirror. Hundreds of tiny versions of the room were scattered on its surface. 

“I- I saw-” he was having trouble speaking, shock catching on his tongue, numbing it. “You di- you didn’t have a reflection and I- I- my reflection was- it was-”

“ _ Your _ reflection?” False asked, incredulous. “But wasn’t that-!” She cut off. No, the reflection it was of someone else. It wasn’t who she thought. Why would he even be there? “Your reflection. It was wrong, wasn’t it? There were a lot of differences? Too different to really be you?”

“Yeah!” Ren agreed. “I- he- it had white hair and the skin was too pale and when I didn’t have my sunglasses on the eyes were- like Evil Xisuma! I looked like Evil Xisuma!”

So it was Ren’s reflection she saw. Or, it technically was. She swallowed hard, throat impossibly dry. False turned around, facing the cracked mirror and thousands of tiny rooms. Thousands of tiny rooms with no people. Empty, lifeless rooms. No False. No Ren.

“It’s gone!” Ren exclaimed. “My reflection is gone! Like yours!”

False cringed inwardly and reached for the mirror. She dug her fingers under the biggest chunk and started to pull.

“What are you doing?” Ren said, grabbing her arm to try to stop her. “You’re going to cut your fingers open!”

“I’m fine,” False mumbled, shaking him off and continuing to pry it from the frame, iron backing and all.

“Your  _ cloth gloves  _ aren’t going to protect you from  _ broken glass _ ,” he said, pulling at her hand again.

False seethed, shaming him off again. It was a good point. The gloves would rip. She grabbed the middle finger of the glove and pulled it off, taking care to make sure the fingers weren’t pushed into the palm. 

The sight of shiny metal shut Ren’s mouth quickly. The design was like Doc’s in some aspects, except more smoothed down and elegant. Redstone tubing was inlaid into the structure itself. The function itself worked just as well as Doc’s. False took the other glove off as well, showing the same was mirrored. He watched in stunned silence as False finished prying the piece of glass off of the mirror, some of the iron backing peeling off at the corners and edges, but generally intact. The mirror shard was as big as her head and rather heavy. She held it in both hands, not enjoying the scraping sound it made against her palm when she adjusted it.

Ren, to his benefit, didn’t say a word about her arms. She considered thanking him for it but pushed it down. Maybe later if she still wanted to, for now-

“Are you a vampire, Falsie?” Ren asked.

False couldn’t tell if he was joking. His face was neutral but the tone was  _ suspiciously _ neutral. His jaw was tight, holding back a laugh. If it was any other time, False would’ve laughed with him but she had to get a point across. 

“Have you ever used an armor stand?” she asked, hoping for a jumping-off point.

“Once or twice but not often,” he said truthfully. 

“Every time you do a command with the armor stand book, it displays a confirmation from the Stick God,” she explained. Ren nodded a confirmation. Alright, this was good. “That’s an actual person, or, god really, maybe.”

“You’ve lost me,” Ren interrupted.

False pursed her lips, trying again. “The Stick God is the name of a god. A technical god, I guess. He doesn’t really go by that but that’s what Xisuma calms him so that’s what the commands call him. He lives on the other side of the mirror and usually calls himself the M- Puppetmaster,” she stuttered, unsure. 

“The Puppetmaster?” Ren echoed. False nodded.

“He controls armor stands, calls them his puppets. He’s a trickster god. He doesn’t control them as we do. It’s more fluid. All he has to do is wave his hands and they move as people do. That’s where the mirror comes in.

“Your reflection can be one of two things: your actual reflection, or a puppet. A puppet is something that the Puppetmaster uses to mess with people Overworld side. Thinks it’s funny.

“Every update, Xisuma crosses mirror side to get a new book from him. That’s about where our relationship ends with the reflection world. Usually, they can’t get to us and we can’t get to them unless under specific circumstances.”

“But…” Ren said expectantly. “Why don’t we have reflections? Did my reflection look weird because of him?”

“Let me get to it,” False said in a fake snappy tone, a smile on her face. “So sometimes there’s a problem with making armor stands. Sometimes a glitch happens and the Puppetmaster overuses his power. Instead, he creates players on accident. There can’t be two of the same player in the world so they always look different in various ways. Like yours has white hair and red eyes.”

“Like Evil Xisuma,” Ren pointed out.

False paused. It wasn’t technically her information to tell but…

“Yes, like Evil Xisuma,” she confirmed. “EX is a reflection player of Xisuma.”

“So he was able to cross?”

She paused again. “Yes.”

Ren wanted to ask more questions. How did EX cross? How was the Puppetmaster powerful enough to make players? He stayed quiet though. False wasn’t done.

“My player reflection is… she has white hair instead of blonde. And white eyes.”

“You met her?”

“Once. Once back in world 3. She tried to cross over to the Overworld and started trying to fight me. I don’t think she realized that I could also be there if she was. I pushed her back into the reflection and she hasn’t been back since.”

“So why don’t we have reflections right now?” Ren asked again. 

“Honestly? I’m not sure,” False admitted. “Our real reflection should’ve gone back to prominence, or an actual puppet. The only thing I can think of is the Puppetmaster keeping a reflection from showing up. I don’t know why he would do that but, I don’t know about you, but I’m really worried about why a powerful god wouldn’t want me to see my reflection.”

Ren shivered. “Yeah, that can’t be good, man.” 

He took a second to process, going over all the new information. New questions came to mind. Too many to count. He allowed himself to ask just one.

“Does everyone have a reflection player?” he asked.

False started to consider it. “I mean, I don’t think everyone does,” she said, unsure. “Xisuma obviously did. You do. I once saw something wrong with Mumbo’s reflection a while back but haven’t since.”

“What did you see?”

“He didn’t have a mustache,” False said, a smirk growing on her face that she couldn’t bite back.

Ren burst out laughing, False quickly joining him. She set the piece of the mirror down and composed herself.

“It was a while back, though,” she said. “And he was standing right in front of me with a mustache, so it wasn’t like he shaved it.”

“So any difference in reflection to person is a player reflection?”

“Yeah, and I wouldn’t call it a good thing to see that. The Puppetmaster doesn’t like the player reflections getting too close to the Overworld players.”

Ren looked nervous for a second, thinking about something. He looked like he wanted to say something but was weighing his options.

“What is it?” she pried. Ren still didn’t say anything. “Look if we’re gonna figure out what the Puppetmaster wants then we need all the information we can get.”

“We’re trying to figure out what he wants?” Ren asked.

“Yeah, so throw me a bone here, Ren.”

“Iskall has a player reflection.”

False was quiet, processing for a little longer than usual.

More glass shattered under rubber soles as False and Ren made their way to the nether portal at a hare’s pace.

* * *

_ “This has to work. This has to work. He said it would work.” _

_ “And what if it doesn’t? What if the Master finds out. Then what happens to you.” _

_ “What happens happens. This is my last chance.” _

_ “There are infinitely more chances! We just have to wait a little longer. We just have to hold out a little more.” _

_ “No one’s coming for me X8IB! Once you leave it’ll just be me!” _

_ “What if there are others?” _

_ “That’s a huge what if. So what if there are others anyway? What good does that do me? … That’s what I thought.” _

_ “You could help them across as well.” _

_ “And if this doesn’t work in the first place, then we’re all screwed. Listen, X8IB, I’m not a paragon of a selfless person. I want out.” _

_ “If you don’t come back then I won’t be sorry.” _

_ “If I don't come back then I’ll see you again on the other side and you won’t have to be.” _

* * *

There was a knock at Xisuma’s office door. It surprised him, made his heart skip a beat and pen jump off of the paper. He didn’t reply to the knock for too long. The person knocked again.

“Come in,” he said, hesitantly. He tried to keep the nervous waver out of his voice. It wasn’t working.

The door clicked open slowly, a head peeking in first. Blue glowing glasses stared at him in the dark room, only lights coming from the electronics that surrounded him.

“Oh hi, Joe,” Xisuma said, setting the pen down on the table. “Did you need something?”

Joe took a second to respond. He seemed hesitant. Nervous. Was it about the ban? He saw it, Xisuma knew he saw it. Xisuma was a terrible liar and it showed in the messages. It showed in his form, how he nervously twitched at the shoulder and fingers fiddled with whatever was available. Eyes looking around nervously and red-tinted ears were hidden under his helmet.

“Is there any way I could get a new console device?” Joe asked. Xisuma felt a weight slide off his shoulders. “The light that close to my eye hurts to focus on.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Xisuma said, voice a lot smoother than before. “Any preference on type?”

“Maybe a wristwatch like the ones that Cub and Tango have?” Joe suggested.

Xisuma considered it for a second. “I supposed I could make a more advanced version of theirs. I’m assuming a blue screen still?”

“Yeah that’d be great,” Joe confirmed, slowly getting tenser. “Thanks, Xisuma.”

“I’ll have it done in a week tops,” he said, picking up his pen again to get back to work.

He expected Joe to say goodbye and leave. To close the door behind him and not look back. To be done talking. Well, he more of hoped more than thought, because deep down he knew that Joe was just going to stand there, expectantly, waiting, a question on his tongue and meaning in his words.

Xisuma conceded, looking up and setting the pencil back down. He prepared himself for the question.

“Why did you ban EX?” Joe asked. Xisuma felt an aching pain in his chest. “I thought you said he was acting better. What could he have done in Spectator mode to cause you to ban him? Why couldn’t you get Zedaph to help?”

Joe was shooting off questions at the speed of light. He seemed sadder with each question, or maybe that was just Xisuma. 

Xisuma bit his tongue, steadying his breath slowly as Joe stopped rattling off his questions.

“It's only a temporary ban,” he said, voice softer than intended. “He tried reverting the server back to 1.13. Consider it a time-out.”

Joe didn’t seem to buy it. His expression turned from sad to disappointed, any fight he had in him to argue fizzling. Silently, he nodded and left, the door clicking closed behind him.

Silently, Xisuma picked up the pen and started writing. Forty-one iron blocks. Twenty-five redstone blocks. Nine dark grey glass panes. Nine clear glass blocks…


	6. Chapter 6

Ren heard footsteps coming from behind him, echoing off of the walls of the cave. He stopped shoving items into his backpack, causing the footsteps to be the only thing making a sound in the room. He looked up, eyes narrowed in suspicion. His look softened as he saw Doc walking toward him, the flitters of warming magic disappearing and what was left of the water from the elevator evaporating off of his skin.

“Hey, man,” he said nonchalantly with a friendly smile.

Ren smiled back, his expression drooping with exhaustion from the bags under his eyes to the way his shoulders were much too relaxed. He stayed hunched over his backpack, shoving it slightly behind him as Doc approached and closing the flap over itself.

“Hey there, Doc,” Ren replied, leaning back onto his ankles.

“What are you packing up?” Doc asked, standing in front of Ren now. He squatted down to match Ren, eventually moving to sit with his knees pulled up and hands behind him, propping him up.

“Just some stuff to build with in Hermitville,” Ren lied. He felt heat rise to his ears but his smile kept steady, reopening the pack. There wasn’t anything suspicious in there, just a little too  _ much _ . He shuffled over to another chest and opened it, grabbing a few stacks of wood and tossing them into a nearby brown shulker.

“I was just about to head over,” Doc said. His gaze flickered from the shulkers to Ren, to past him, back to Ren. “Wanna tag along? I can wait up.”

“I don’t want to hold you up,” Ren shot back, not making eye contact. He buried his head in the wood chest, pretending to need something deeper down. “I have to stop by the Pigmen Farm anyway, so I won’t be over too quickly.”

“Oh, alright,” Doc said, clearly disappointed. He brought a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed it, looking up and away with a grimace. “It’s just that I haven’t hung out with you lately. You’ve been so out of it, man.”

Was it heating up in here? No, he was just starting to feel guilty. It wasn’t his fault though. He’s been tired. He hasn’t been able to sleep, worrying too much about the mirror. Worrying too much about False and Iskall and Stress. Worrying too much about the red-eyed reflections. Worrying so much that he had definitely stopped moving entirely, staring at the open chest with a steady glare with enough venom behind the eyes to cause Doc to only light him on the shoulder in an attempt to get his attention. Ren jumped slightly, a gasp tearing through his throat. He took a deep breath and turned to the shulker, shoving it into his bag.

“I just haven’t slept much lately,” he said, truthfully. “Stress causing some… bad dreams.”

“What’s got you so stressed?” Doc asked, more concern weaving itself into his tone as he leaned forward, hand resting on Ren’s shoulder.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Ren murmured, opening another chest full of glass of various colors.

“What?” Doc said, voice pitching high. “But you alwa-” he cut off, going rigid as if he had just realized something. The words stopped in his throat and he forced a soft smile, letting out a light sigh. He took his hand off of Ren’s shoulder and stood up. “Right, sorry,” he said, quietly. “I’m gonna go to Hermitville. See you there?”

Ren shrugged, not forcing a smile as his head was buried in the glass chest. Doc’s shoulders dropped, waving hand falling to his side. He nodded and walked back to the bubble elevator. Ren listened to the sound of his friend rushing up the water system and out of sight. Weight fell from his shoulders and he sighed, pulling himself out of the glass chest. He popped his neck from side to side, hearing cracks in his spine.

He threw a few more shulkers in the back and swung it over his shoulder, silence filling the damp cave.

* * *

_ DM:MIRROR _

_ <FalseSymmetry> Hey, I need to talk to you about something _

_ <FalseSymmetry> It’s super important this time, can you get to the mushroom island ASAP? _ _   
_ _ <FalseSymmetry> I know you know where it is _

_ <FalseSymmetry> Stop ignoring me, I swear it’s important this time _

_ <FalseSymmetry> X8IB?? _

_ Player ID Not Found _

Ice rushed down False’s spine, shoulders tensing. She gasped loudly, visibly jumped at the sound of a large  _ splash _ from behind her. Cold air stung her throat and she suppressed a coughing fit with a twisted up face as she turned to face the waterfall that acted as a barrier to her storage system. 

Cleo landed on the stone tiles with a big, chipper grin on her face. Her hair was slowly puffing back up as warmth surrounded her, red hair pushing up like flames and flowers unwilting. She walked toward False with a skip in her step, her boots clicking against the tiles and leaving wet footprints behind.

“Hey, False,” she said, smile so big her eyes closed momentarily. “What’re you up to?”

“Nothing much,” False said, shrugging. Her communicator was tight in her grip, too tense at the shoulder to put it away. She couldn’t force a smile, it would look too tense. Instead, she gave a neutral look.

She stood amongst a few shulker boxes full of miscellaneous materials. Some glass, redstone blocks, a lot of iron, and some wood. She had been finishing up packing to leave when she had been messaging X8IB.

“Well, if you’re not too busy, do you want to go grab some proper lunch?” Cleo asked. “I’m craving something other than gold-covered carrots.”

False laughed genuinely, a small chuckle, though she shook her head. “No, I’m meeting Iskall soon,” she said. “Don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“Really?” Cleo interrogated. “I haven’t seen him in weeks! What are you two up to?” She had a teasing smile on her face, a glimmer in her eyes as she leaned forward, hands folded behind her back.

“It’s a secret!” False said, truthfully, looking away and rolling her eyes.

“Oh?” Cleo stood back up straight, hands going to her hips. “I can’t believe my friends are such secret keepers? What happened to telling each other things?”

It seemed like a joke, it really did. The consonants were too sharp, though. She didn’t make eye contact. She glared at the wall. The eye roll was intensive. False pursed her lips, picking up a few shulker boxes and putting them into her bag.

“It’s no big deal, Cleo,” she said, annoyance putting an edge to her tone. “It’s just a surprise project. I’m delivering some stuff to Iskall. I don’t even know what it’s for.”

Cleo laughed lightly again, mood shifting. False looked over. Her face was flushed and she looked up and away, shoulders pulled up. “Fine, fine,” she conceded. “See you later then!” She fished a rocket out of her pocket and approached the waterfall. “Let me know if you changed your mind on lunch, even tomorrow!”

“Will do!” False replied, watching Cleo take off carefully. She watched her fly far off into the distance, becoming a dot in the sky. Only then did she go back to packing things up.

Just before entering the nether portal, she looked at her communicator again. She must’ve been gripping it too hard because the screen was all cracks, glass chipping off. There was a bar of dead pixels across the middle, but the app itself wasn’t glitching out. It still showed the same taunting message.

* * *

EX felt his throat sting with dry nothingness, no air reaching his lungs. He coughed and wheezed, but no relief came to his lungs or throat. His eyes were pitched wide, looking out and stinging with the same burn. He didn’t dare close them, staring blankly into the inky abyss, dotted with flickering stars. They flickered in and out of existence before him, “twinkingly.” His mind was blank, the stars creating a fuzzy static in his head.

The void felt crushing like it was trying to suffocate him. He wouldn’t close his eyes and let the complete darkness crush him like he knew it would. He glared out into the void with a vindictive gleam, limbs tense and unmoving as he floated, not quite falling. 

He focussed on a single star and watching it get brighter. Brighter. The light filled his vision. All the other stars around it seemed to fade away as he focused on it. The only star left with this one, right in front of him, letting him glare into it alone. It only shone brighter, an intense white burning his unwavering eyes, daring him to look away. His jaw was tight, testing it. Finally, it got too bright, filling the inky abyss in bright, pure white that he wouldn’t look away from, that he wouldn’t close his eyes against.

So why were his eyes closed? Why was his body relaxed? Why was he no longer floating? Why was he breathing stale air?

His eyes were closed tight, trying to go back into a dark, sleepy abyss. His limbs were waking up, pins and needles dancing on his skin. There was ground beneath him. Hard, rough ground, not at all a soft bed or warm field. It was warm, alright. Warm light fresh ash and soot. He smelled the smoke in the air, wood fire burning his nostrils. The air itself was impossibly dry.

“Is he waking up yet?” a voice asked, annoyance clear in their tone. “He’s just been sitting there. How do you know he’s not dead.”   


“Because he has a pulse, dummy,” another voice chimed in, a playful ring. “He seems to be waking up a bit. Give him some time.”

“I’m tired of waiting,” the first voice said. “We have things to do! We only have so much time.”

“We have plenty of time,” a third said. “We just have to hold out a little longer.”

EX jumped enough that he shifted something, hitting his elbow against what felt like a plank of wood. He cursed and gasped, pulling the elbow closer into himself and squeezing his eyes shut even tighter. With a grimace, he sat up, obviously awake now.

“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, stretching his arm out. He bent and unbent the joint, feeling it pop uncomfortably. That didn’t sound quite right. As he continued to stretch it, he opened his eyes, mostly looking at his arm.

Once he finished checking on his arm, he looked at his surroundings. There was a campfire surrounded by three logs, kept in place by rocks half-buried in soot-covered dirt. There was no fresh grass or foliage, just dead logs and soot-covered dirt. The fire was big, half the height of the people sitting around the fire with giant plumes of smoke floating lazily up and out of it. There were four people around the fire, all looking uncomfortably familiar.

One sat on one of the logs alone, a blank look on her face as she poked the fire with a stick, looking uninterested. She had puffy, brown hair cut in a bob. The cut was rough, looking as if it was done with a dagger instead of scissors, which was probably true. She had frost covering her hands that was slowly melting as it got closer to the fire, only to reform as soon as she pulled away. Her eyes were entirely a blank, light blue.

Two sat on the same log, one looking annoyed while the other properly tended the fire, unlike the first. The annoyed-looking one had wild brown hair and a scruffy beard. His left eye was covered in steel, a ruby in the center, gleaming brightly. His head was between his hands, cheeks pushing up and elbows on his knees as he leaned uncomfortably close to the fire. The other was remarkably pale with white hair, brown at the tips. His hair was long, pulled into a low ponytail that was just past his shoulders, spiking out, puffy. His eyes had a red sclera, just like EX’s, and there was what looked like a laceration scar coming from under his hair and reaching just below his eyebrow, cutting it in half.

The last, he definitely remembered in entirely, though she definitely looked a bit different than she was years ago. White hair that she had recently cut into a pixie cut, puffy and uneven. Pure white eyes that held the same vindictive glare. More scars than she used to have, looking like battle scars going down her arms and legs where she had rolled up her pants into shorts.

“Oh, you’re awake,” The blue-eyed one said, setting the stick down so it rested on the log she sat on, sitting up straight.

The others looked over as well, EX suddenly capturing their full interest. EX froze under their interrogating looks as they searched him up and down carefully.

The pale one was the first to speak up. “Finally!” he cried, revealing himself as the first voice.

“We thought we were the only ones left,” the ruby-eyed one said with a smile with was oddly warm. “Guess we were wrong.”

“Where am I?” EX asked, glancing at all of them. His eyes landed on the white-haired girl just in time to see her glare and look away.

“With the survivors, my dude!” the pale one cheered.

“Oh,” EX said, voice dropping with confusion. “I… who are you guys?”

“I’m War!” the pale one introduced, standing up and running over. He stuck out a hand that EX grabbed to shake, only to be pulled up to his feet, causing him to stumble forward a little, closer to the fire and the group.

“I’m Rest,” the blue-eyed one said, going back to poking the fire, still as uninterested as before.

“Risk,” the ruby-eyed on said.

There was a pregnant pause where there should’ve been another voice. War and Risk waited expectantly for the last to speak, both becoming more confused outwardly as the silence stretched on. EX, on the other hand, only felt an ice-cold feeling sink him further and further down into dread. Slowly, he turned to gaze to the last of their group. She was still looking away, glaring at the fire. Her face twitched slightly, then relaxed completely.

EX felt the dread start to consume him as she braced herself, standing up to full height. She looked to EX with a faux smile, though there were annoyance and anger clear from where he was standing. It was likely the others didn’t see it, didn’t know how to recognize it other than determination or pride in her eyes.

“I’m True,” she said with an icy cold voice, walking toward EX and holding her hand out toward him, the third voice that was spoke, the one that had caused him to jolt in surprise and recognition. “We’ve met before, right?”

EX looked up at her, then down at the hand offered. He tensed, but smiled, putting his hand in hers and shaking slightly. She gripped down tightly, shaking with a bit more vigor. It caused his hand to ache as she let go, feeling pins and needles where her fingers had pushed into his skin. 

“Um, yeah,” he said vaguely. “I’m X8IB.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have posted the wrong chapter today so you get a double update

Iskall stepped out of the nether portal carefully, his boots barely making a sound as they hit the front patio of iTrade. The rain immediately soaked him as he stepped out of the bare cover the warmth of the portal gave. Dark grey clouds covered the night sky, blocking out the moon and stars. 

He pulled his jacket closer to himself, pulling his hood up over his head. The fresh smell of rain was sweet as he wandered deeper into the shopping district.

The streets were empty and dark, only the occasional street lamp or shop light illuminating the rainy streets, barely casting a glimmer onto Iskall. He gave the shops with windows a wide berth, shying away from the light they gave. It was inevitable, though. He walked up the steps of Cherry, keeping his head down and blocking the sides of his vision with the sides of his hood.

Warmth flooded him as he reached full cover under the lamps surrounding the giant tree in the center of the store. He let out a small sigh at the feeling but kept his jacket pulled close in on himself and hood up.

He took some diamonds from his shulker box and browsed the shop. It was slightly unstocked, Scar being busy with other things. Still, there was enough for what he needed.

Creaking chests, wooden footsteps, and rain on the roof in the dead of night. Soft breathing, a breath of fresh air. It certainly helped his attitude, being able to calm down slightly from all the stress that was suffocating him lately.

He put a shulker box full of fresh redstone materials into the enderchest and pulled his jacket closer to himself again, preparing for the trek back to the island with just a boat and a sword. He hadn’t brought tools or gear, less shiny objects to catch someone’s eye. He jumped in surprise, hoping not to see anyone in the shopping district with the weather and time of day.

Standing in the doorways of Cherry was Joe, hair plastered over his face with rain and glasses covered in droplets. Despite this, he still looked chipper, if not tired. He had likely been working on something lost track of the time.

“Oh, hey Joe,” Iskall said first, not moving from the spot where he stood. “What are you doing up?”

“Best not to dig down,” Joe replied in a thoughtful, but tired, voice. “Only dampers your mood, and it’s good to stay up even in dark times.”

Iskall chuckled a little, smiling and shaking his head. “Right,” he said, knowing Joe would want to take things literally this late. “‘I’ve got to go, it’s already _ super _ late. G’night Joe-”

“Joeson!” a voice called from around the corner, voice and quick footsteps muffled by the rain. 

Doc came speeding around the corner, kicking up puddles with his boots. His eye casted more light than the light around them, illuminating Doc and the path in a deeper red. Iskall felt himself tense at the red light, frowning a bit as Doc ran up to Joe and clapped him on the shoulder.

“_ Doc, _ ” Joe said with careful intensity, snapping the C sharply. “I was just about to ask _ Iskall _ here where he’s heading off to since no one has _ seen him _ in three weeks now.”

“Were you?” Iskall asked, butting in with a frown. “Listen, it’s late, it’s raining. I need to go back home if you don’t mind.”

“To your lab?” Doc asked with a pushy tone.

Iskall sneered. Of course, they’re trying to figure out where he’s been. While the concern is _ appreciated _, it wasn’t welcomed, especially with such prying tones and expectations. Maybe he was just being irritable and tired, but he had already stayed up late just to get to the shopping district when it was least likely anyone would see him. Yet, here he was with two prying Hermits, with Doc calling Joe “Joeson,” which had red flags written all over it.

“No, _ Docson _,” he snapped back. “It’s a secret. I’m not about to go revealing secrets just for your little detective agency.” He pulled his hood tighter over his head, still avoiding looking directly at the glass that surrounded him. He was becoming intensely claustrophobic, surrounded by bright glass walls.

“We’re worried about you guys, Iskall,” Joe said, concern overtaking his voice stronger than curiosity. “Nobody has seen you for three weeks, _ forgive us _ for being a little concerned.”

Iskall dropped his shoulders. These were his friends, there was no reason to get so upset. As intrusive as it felt, they were only kicking at the tip of an iceberg that they thought was a snow cap. He held an iron tight grip on the sides of his hood and gave a tired, disappointed frown.

“I’m fine,” he said, murmuring. “We’re, uh, both fine. Stress and I. I just haven’t got a lot of sleep, been working on projects.”

He felt trapped. Running away would only cause more problems, only serving to make him look more suspicious. He didn’t _ look _ fine by any means. He had heavy bags under his eyes and was grabbing at his hood like a lifeline. Plus, he couldn’t speak for Stress in the slightest and it sounded weird on his tongue to try to speak for his friend’s wellbeing. Hesitant, he took a stumbling step forward, then a full step, then started walking toward one of the open doors at a brisk pace, but not running or seeming in a rush to leave.

“I’m... gonna go,” he said, voice still low and nervous. “See you guys later.”

Four feet out the door and down the stairs, Joe spoke up. “Is that a promise?” he asked. He might’ve been teasing, in a different context he definitely would be. There was still a joking tone but the intensiveness that pushed the sentence forward obvious.

Iskall giggled a little and smile, looking back at them. He let go of his hood, now away from the glass sidings that made his skin crawl. He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned backward a little to look up at them, still at the doorway. “Yeah,” he laughed. “It’s a promise, _ Joeson. _”

He turned and started walking away again. He didn’t get very far, though. He had his hood down, head lowered to try to keep some rain out of his face. He wasn’t looking where he was going, that was his mistake. But, knocking directly into another person sent a shock through his system. He gasped in surprise and stumbled back, hand flying to his chest where his heart was racing. As he was stumbling backward, his heel hit a particularly slippery puddle of mud. Soon the ground was nowhere to be found and vertigo filled his head until his back hit the wet ground and mud splashed all around him.

“Iskall?” the person he crashed into him called. “Are- are you okay?”

Iskall groaned and took his hand off of his chest. His back ached from the impact and he was now soaking head to toe. No magic cloth was going to get the mud out of his jacket, it was probably dampened with all of the dirt anyway. He planted his hands in the mud around him and pushed his head out of the puddle, he could feel the weight of the mud on his hood.

When he opened his eyes, a pale hand was in his face, red dust under fingernails and in between the cracks of the palm. Still disoriented, he looked up and met eyes with Mumbo. The light from the surrounding shops made the red flecks in his eyes light up more than normal, the ruby color sending an unwelcome chill down Iskall’s spine. He flinched slightly, hoping Mumbo didn’t see it.

“I’m good,” he said, laughing a bit as he smiled. He grabbed Mumbo’s hand and let Mumbo help pull him to his feet. “I’m fine. Just gave me a scare.”

“Well that’s good,” Mumbo said, concern still obvious in his tone. He glanced over Iskall’s shoulder, back from where he came. His eyes lit up with the joy of recognition. “Hey Doc, hey Joe!”

Iskall heard the murmured greetings behind him. The two seem uncomfortable. They obviously weren’t expecting Mumbo to show up, but Iskall knew Mumbo’s sleep schedule was in the ruts with him focusing so much on Grian-proofing the industrial zone. It kept him busy, at least, and out of Iskall’s hair. Mumbo might’ve been one of the people out of his close friends that sent him the least messages asking about his whereabouts. Iskall took no offence, Mumbo often disappeared on his own to work on things, but at least Mumbo told people where he actually was.

“Where have you been, Iskall?” Mumbo asked, immediately dampening Iskall’s mood even more.

He took a deep breath, trying not to lose his head. It wasn’t Mumbo’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault! Soon it wouldn’t matter. Soon this would all be over and done with and he could get back to being around people and seeing people and being… happy.

“Secret project,” Iskall said quickly. “I’m gonna go home and change. Goodnight.”

Before Mumbo could respond or ask any further questions, Iskall shoved his muddy hands into his pockets and rushed off toward the nearest portal, his steps more careful, his head up, as quickly as possible. Mumbo shut his mouth at the surprise of being cut off and looked at Iskall’s retreating form with pierced lips and a furrowed brow. When Iskall disappeared from his view entire, he looked back to Doc and Joe, who were still standing in the door to Cherry.

Joe looked soaked, his hair sticking flat to his head and shirt draped off of him and dripping. His glasses were the only things not wet, another material magic set into his items. Doc was a little better off, having the sense of mind to step under the cover of the shop. He was still dripping slightly, lab coat a shade of grey instead of white and hair slightly frizzy. They both looked into the distance with looks of regret. Mumbo didn’t look much better off in the rain department. His suit was sticking to him weird and his hair was a mess. The redstone stuck to various parts of his body was beginning to run and his right hand was covered in mud.

Mumbo walked over and up the steps of Cherry. Doc and Joe moved back slightly to let him through. A silent Mumbo was new. A silent Mumbo meant more serious things than basic irritation or anger. It meant worry and stress and sadness. Things that, with everyone’s current state of mind, no one was able to really and truly help him with to any effect.

He walked over to the chest of repeaters and pried it open, a blank look on his face. Doc and Joe traded a look and a nod before they both started to walk down the steps. 

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” he asked quietly. 

Joe and Doc barely heard him above the rain. Both stopped only two steps down from where they were standing previously.

“What was that?” Joe asked. Doc gave a hesitant look and nodded toward the other end of the shopping district, attempting to get Joe to just leave it. Joe waved a hand off at him, face pulling together in slight annoyance. “I couldn’t hear you above the rain.” He explained, raising his voice slightly.

“I said,” Mumbo started up again, closing the chest and leaning onto it with all his weight. “Do you know what’s going on?” He turned around to face them, his face full-on in a state of stress now. “No one has been telling me anything and frankly, I don’t have the faintest clue what could be going on. Grian’s been just as secretive lately, for once _ I’m _ the only one showing up to Sahara meetings. Iskall’s always away, Grian’s always busy. At this point, I’ve given up on trying to get Iskall’s attention, and Grian only comes around every once and a while to break one of my farms while I’m not looking! So if you have any idea, or know _ anything _ I would _ love _ to hear it.”

Joe looked down at Doc, who was now two steps down from him and on the pathways. Doc shook his head at Joe, giving a pointed look with clear intention. Joe mirrored him, face scrunched in defiance. He huffed and looked back to Mumbo. Mumbo looked wrecked. He was covered in mud and dirt and redstone and glowstone and soaked to the bone by now. There was mud squelching out of his clenched fist and, though he tried to look at calm as possible, his teeth were gritted and his facial expression was stonecut. 

“We don’t know a lot,” Joe said honestly. “We’ve been trying to investigate. Iskall and Stress haven’t been seen for weeks. That’s the first time anyone of us have seen him since. Grian, on the other hand. I don’t know why he would be avoiding you. He’s been helping us with the investigation. Sherlock Grian, and all.” 

“Now that I think of it,” Doc spoke up. Joe sent a glare his way, a warning. Doc gave one of reassurance. He wasn’t going to stop him. “Grian didn’t even send any of us to go check on you. I just assumed he was going to talk to you himself.”

“We thought we were just trying to figure out what happened to everyone’s armor stands and other entities,” Joe said, “but at this point, there’s so much going on I don’t know what to focus on. False and Ren have basically disappeared as well. According to Cleo, False said that she was going to meet up with Iskall.” Joe let his shoulders drop. “I was going to ask him about it but…”

“Ren’s been acting really weird,” Doc said. “He hasn’t been sleeping. He disappeared the day after False and both of them were seen packing up some stuff before they went. Ren said he was going to head to Hermitville but he never showed up.”

There was a pause as they let Mumbo process the influx of information. Mumbo stared at them blankly for a moment, expression no longer a worried mess of emotions, but stoney calm. Eventually, he breathed out slowly, the tenseness that consumed him slowly draining with each puff of air. His shoulders dropped, his hands and teeth unclenched. His jaw dropped and his eyes drooped. He took another moment and swallowed, determination slowly lighting up his eyes and his form slowly building back up with strength and tenseness surrounding him.

“Thanks for telling me,” Mumbo said. “Good luck with your investigation.”

Doc and Joe looked between each other, a mix of regret and hesitation on Doc’s face and look of satisfaction from Joe’s.

“Good luck on your farms!” Joe said, chipperness coming back his tone. “Don’t overwork yourself like the others are.”

“I won’t,” Mumbo assured. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Joe and Doc said in unison.

Doc waved off and they both walked in tandem out of the shopping district, neither taking off.

Mumbo watched them retreat until they were out of eyesight, and then some. In the distance, he saw the second-floor lights in the detective’s office giving off a warm glow in the cold, damp night. He heard the singing of the doorbell just barely above the downpour. Only then did he move.

He gave a slight _ tch _ and straightened up, dusting himself off and removing the mud and dust from his hands with the help from the dampness of his overcoat. Breath in, breath out. He pulled out his communicator and turned around, sitting on the spruce table that the display items sat on. The sound of the keys clicking on the communicator would be inaudible outside of the store, the rain dampening the noise.


	8. Chapter 8

Iskall stopped rushing when he got to the narrow entrance on a small nether cliff. The tunnel went thousands of blocks more down, far from any other build on the maps. His breath was heavy, laboring under the dense, humid air of the upper nether cliffs. His boots clicked against the hardened netherrack has he started the claustrophobic trek down the tunnel. He had meant to widen the tunnel, decorate it and connect it to nearby paths. That had never come about. He had to make it inconspicuous for now so no one would come looking, and even if they did there was a chance they wouldn’t be able to find it. So far, the only ones who found it were safe. The occasional pigman, a villager that somehow managed to survive his confused wander through hell, False, and Ren, who came together with the spying that Ren had apparently done to try to find where Iskall kept disappearing to.

The portal itself sat in a blown-out cavern with no corners, sitting at the bottom of a crater-like hole. It was intentionally dilapidated, another trick to make it seem like maybe whoever came looking was in the wrong place. Who would enter some old-looking portal? Who would leave their portal in such a sorry state, no corner blocks and sunken into the ground? It was built in haste and stayed that way.

As Iskall approached he could already feel himself become nauseous, looking at the swirling shades of purple. Maybe it was because he was already feeling unwell, but he didn’t want to go through that portal. But beyond the portal was fresh air, a calm atmosphere (for the most part), and three people that wouldn’t question him for hours about where he had been. The best part? His bed was there and he was much too tired to do anything except drop the shulker box full of materials at False and Stress’ feet and go pass out under the covers. That’s what ended up pushing him into the portal and bearing the burden of the nauseous feeling that overcame him.

He groaned as the swirling colors faded behind his eyes and fresh air replaced the boiling atmosphere of the nether. A swirl of wind blowing past cooled the beads of sweat covering his face from both the heat and the exhaustion that came from speeding toward the tunnel in the first place.

“There ‘e is!” Stress called from a hundred or so blocks away, just barely audible in his waning consciousness. “Iz already daylight, what took ya so long?”

“Got held up by some wannabe detectives,” Iskall said truthfully, dragging his feet along as he rummaged through his pack for the shulker box, feeling around for it instead of looking.

“Which ones were they?” False asked from nearby, somewhere to Iskall’s right. He turned in direction of her, knowing the items were really supposed to go to what False was working on. of

“Doc, Joe…” Iskall listed. “I ran into Mumbo too, but I don’t think he was with them. What would Mumbo’s Watson name be anything? Mumson? Boson?” He giggled lightly and finally fetched the right shulker from his pack, setting it in the ground near False’s project and tossing the extra diamonds her way.

“Joe’s in on it?” False questioned, opening the box and checking the contents. Satisfied, she closed it and continued. “I didn’t think he’d be the one to go snooping around.”

“No you should have seen him when the Jingler sent out those fake letters in the mail,” Ren said, coming from… somewhere. Iskall couldn’t tell until arms were around his shoulder, supporting him while he was near to collapse. “I’ve never seen him so upset. I think Jevin said that he saw him breaking into the Concorp Infinity Glove.”

Iskall giggled again, the infectious laughter causing Ren to laugh in turn and start to guide him inside. “Com’on buddy,” he said, “you need your sleep.”

As Ren took Iskall inside where he could rest, False started to pick out materials from the shulker box. She looked up when she heard footsteps approaching from a very particular angle, rounding False’s project and coming from behind, but not stepping in front of it at all, keeping to the side and a little behind the front of the project. False looked up and smiled at Stress, who held a white knuckle grip on the stone frame of the project to keep herself in place, remind her not to move in front of it at all. 

“‘Ow close are we?” Stress asked, her voice dragging slightly. She looked tired, bags under her eyes and movements slightly sluggish, but still awake and of relatively high spirits. 

“I should be done tomorrow, and then I need to spend a day or so preparing and getting you guys ready as well,” False explained.

“Ready for what?”

False paused, breath drawing to a slow stop when her attention went elsewhere. She eyes narrowed, eyebrows drawing close together. “Uh…” she murmured close to herself. She lifted her head and met Stress’ gaze, concern written all over Stress’ face. “Is it alright if I explain later? Later today, I mean. When everyone is awake and coherent?”

Stress paused to consider, only growing more concern. Her hands left the stone siding of the project and her face only dropped into disappointment, sending a pang through False’s collected thoughts and making her grit her teeth, but her steady exterior remained and she held her gaze. Stress drew in a sigh, but nodded, turning on her heel and retreating into her temporary house, a tiny version of her ice castle that held a small bed and area for supplies, snow covering pretty much all of the ice. Her hair flipped as she turned around, hitting the glass at the front of the project. False shivered as she saw the reflection of Stress’ hair flash across the glass, looking a little more greasy and a little messier than it should have been.

Ren walked out of Iskall’s little base, closing the door softly behind him only to hear Stress all but slam her door close and see the lights go out inside. He flinched and turned his head quickly over to False, whose calm exterior had tensed into a grimace. 

“What’s up?” he asked, moving away from the housing units each of them had.

False sighed loudly, and leaned over the shulker box, turning into a groan as she curled her arms around her head. Her goggles pushed up and off of her head, resting on top, and her hair frizzled into a blonde mess. Ren gave a sympathetic look and walked over, sitting cross-legged in the mycelium coated ground, spires brushing into his jeans. Patiently, he waited for False’s groaning to end and for her to sink to her knees and rest her bare cheek against the top of the shulker, her right eye pushing closed and face a droopy downcasted look.

They sat in silence for a few seconds. The sound of distant mooshrooms and machinery filling the empty space where mining and talking and wood chopping was a few minutes ago. Iskall and Stress’ units were silent, both dozing off into exhaustion fueled naps that hopefully lasted a long time uninterrupted. They need their sleep.

“I’m sorry,” False murmured, voice slightly muffled by her cheek shoved into her face. 

“For what, Falsie?” Ren asked, perplexed and tilting his head like a puppy dog. 

False groaned again and shoved her face into the shulker shell, coming out tired and high pitched. Ren laughed slightly, but there was no force behind it. He was only slightly more rested than Iskall and Stress, having just gotten up from a nap after finishing some resource gathering to help Iskall out with the projects he had started before this whole mess started. He was still covered in dust and wood chips from his trip across the water to grab more wood, far from the rest of civilization, like it was the beginning of the season again.

“For being so cryptic,” False said, barely audible. “If I just told the truth from the start I don’t think there’d be this much of an issue. I could’ve gone to Xisuma or _something _and had _him _deal with it.”

“Well, why can’t we just go to Xisuma?” Ren asked. “He has easier access to the mirror dimension than having to carefully construct such a big portal.” He gestures to the giant project False had in front of her, polished glass a horrible sight when every other instance of a reflection was covered up.

False's features twisted in on themselves, an odd grimace of regret and hesitation. Ren’s brows drew close to each other, analyzing False’s expression but not commenting on it. That’s how it was recently. No one here talked about it. They didn’t question the giant portal, though it was clearly a portal. They didn’t question why the others couldn’t know. They didn’t question what False was planning. They didn’t even question why the mirror dimension seemed to be suddenly in turmoil, though they didn’t know much about the mirror dimension in the first place. No one but False knew _anything _about the dimension it seemed. 

False murmured something, very quietly. “What was that?” Ren asked.

“Xisuma doesn’t know that I know,” she said, still quiet but now audible.

“He doesn’t know that you fought your own reflection?” 

“That I-?” False stopped herself short, a moment of recollection stopping her. “Right, yeah. He doesn’t know that I fought her.” She curled closer into herself. “He doesn’t know that I know anything about the mirror dimension. He’s probably trying to figure all this out by himself but I can’t tell him anything because I don’t want _him _to know that _I _know.”

“Why not?” Ren said, voice steady, bold, questioning. That was new. 

False didn’t respond, instead opting to curl in even closer, even tighter. The silence was tense, full of unspoken words and clear secrets that didn’t — couldn’t — be mentioned. And they weren’t going to be. 

Ren cut through the silence with a sob and push his hands on the ground, feeling the spores rub off and stain the cracks in his hands. He pushed himself up and brushed himself off, light purple particles falling to the ground around him.

“Promise me you’ll tell me when you’re ready?” he said in a low voice.

False only nodded, burying her face in her hands again. She would probably fall asleep right there on the ground, face down on a shulker box as she lost herself in thought. No working on the portal, no being question, no dragging herself into a proper bed.

Ren sighed and walked away, heading to a small building full of chest upon chest upon chest, all labeled neatly and well organized, something that half the server never managed to do on their own. He took a few shulker boxes out and started sorting through the new items.

His communicator buzzed ten minutes into the task. He has put in music at some point, Chirp playing in the background as he meticulously sorted through it all. He fished it out of his pocket, expecting to have to just ignore it and go back to his own task. 

_<EvilXisuma joined the game>_

He heard a clamor from outside. He calmly set down the item in his hand and shoved the communicator in his pocket before leaning out the door to the storage room and turning his attention to the noise. 

False was wide away and sorting through her items. She shoved her turtle helmet one and shoved her sword into his sheath. With the lack of Mobs on the island other than phantoms, she had put either on in a long time. That was a bad sign if he’d ever seen it.

“What are you doing?” Ren asked, speed walking toward False was pulling her gear together.

False stopped altogether, breath stopping with her. She only had one glove on, her leggings only half strapped on, and the clasp on her helmet not clicked together yet. Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Clasped tightly in her left hand was her communicator, still broken from before she left for the island. 

“Where are you going?” Ren asked instead.

“To see EX,” False said, determination in her voice, though her breath started to labor and quicken. 

“And who do you think he’d be with?” Ren asked, taking a few steps toward her.

False let out a sharp breath, eyes glaring down at her feet. Slowly, her breathing evened. Frustration clear on her face, she pocketed the communicator and sat down on the shulker. All the fight in her fizzled, leaving her sitting on a shulker in the quiet afternoon, weighed down by a heavy outer shell that was slowly slipping off her, diamond legging clanking against the box.

Ren set some wood down next to her and sat on it, slouching over himself slightly. He looked down at his feet for a bit, hands limp between his knees. Quietly, he wrapped his arm around False’s shoulder and hugged her to his side. It didn’t take long for her to reciprocate, turning toward him and enveloping them both in a tight hug as a strong part of False’s determination broke.

She let go of the hug and pulled the communicator out of her pocket. Silently, she stared at it. There weren’t any new messages on the screen, just that little grey and yellow message bright at the bottom under a wall of random dialogue between other hermits.

“Can you get Stress and Iskall?” she asked. “I’m almost done and I want to explain some things before everything might go wrong.”


	9. Chapter 9

_ “What’s your name?” _

_ “I don’t have one.” _

_ “What do you mean you don’t have one, everyone has one.” _

_ “That’s rather rude. I’m your reflection, I don’t have a name.” _

_ “What do your friends call you?” _

_ “... Nothing. I don’t have any of those.” _

_ “Well, then I’ll just call you EX.” _

_ “EX?” _

_ “Extra Xisuma.” _

_ “That’s silly. I’m not an extra version of you. I’m just me.” _

_ “How about Evil Xisuma?” _

_ “That’s still silly.” _

_ “Do you know her?” _

_ “No, why would I know anyone here?” _

_ “You’ve been staring at her.” _

_ “She looks like someone I thought I knew.” _

_ “A friend?” _

_ “I told you I don’t have any of those.” _

_ “You have me.” _

_ “Fine, then I have one friend. She isn’t one of them and neither is the person she reminds me of.” _

_ “She can be. Let me introduce her. Hey False! Over here!” _

_ “No! I’m going to go make a house or something. Leave me alone. I don’t want to meet anyone.” _

* * *

Xisuma was woken up by a knock at his office door. He jolted upright, almost banging his head on his monitor. A few papers flew onto the floor around him, one taking its sweet time peeling itself off of his face and onto his lap. He looked at the scattered papers around him and started to pick them up, completely forgetting about the knock that had woken him up from the impromptu nap until it came again, this time seeming a little bit louder, a little more forceful. Papers still bundled in his hands, he scrambled toward the door, pulling himself to his feet with the door handle. He swung the door open forcefully, looking a mess and only then realizing that his helmet sat on the table behind him. His hair was probably a frizzled nest.

Standing in the doorway was the last person he expected to see in front of his office door at… what time was it? 2 pm. How long had he been asleep? Mumbo looked a bit frazzled as well, hair a mess and redstone sticking to his fingers, a large stain across his forehead where he probably went to wipe off some sweat with dirty hands. What was surprising was that he looked upset, mad even.

“God, you’re alive,” Mumbo said with a bit more venom than Xisuma was particularly used to. It made him jump, even more concern flooding his system than was already filling it.

“Mumbo are you alright?” Xisuma asked, taking his hand off the door handle.

“Not quite,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Xisuma said, moving aside to let the angry brit take his look of the messy, dimly lit office before them.

As Mumbo moved toward the desk, Xisuma fumbled around for the light switch with one hand. He flicked it on, filling the room with the warm light of the redstone lamps above their heads. The office looked positively horrendous. It looked like a tornado had been through. Metaphorically it had if Xisuma’s stressful nature lately could be considered a tornado. Most would consider it as such. There were papers everywhere, the ones not on the floor being in messy, disorganized piles on the desk. The computer had gone into sleep mode likely ages ago and was giving off a low hum of the fans with the little blue light glowing in and out. His bookshelf was a mess and five of his pens had gone missing in the last three days.

“You look dreadful,” Mumbo commented as Xisuma went to go grab his helmet, squinting around and mostly trying to find it with his hands instead of his eyes. The light in the room was stinging his eyes already and giving him a headache.

“Thanks,” Xisuma said, rolling his eyes and shoving his helmet over his head, hearing the clasp click into place.

“No, I mean,” Mumbo fumbled for a second, sitting down in the chair across from Xisuma’s computer, “when’s the last time you got proper sleep in a bed? Or left this room for that matter?”

“I left to go restock my shops last week.”

“Last week?”

“I’m fine,” Xisuma assured him. “What did you need?”

Mumbo glanced around the room slightly, looking at the near-incomprehensible papers filled with glitch reports and lag graphing and spawn rate calculations. He saw a neat stack of papers filled with dots and lines which looked like morse code and a paper that looked like someone had just printed a huge block of black ink instead of anything important.

“Have you talked to Iskall lately?” Mumbo asked, still looking at the papers scattered about.

Xisuma seemed to almost flinch. His hand shot to the stack of dots and lines almost instinctively, but he didn’t grab anything from the stack. Mumbo looked too but glanced away just as quickly, not wanting to be caught staring and sway Xisuma’s outlook.

“Uh, no,” Xisuma said nervously. “I haven’t talked to him at all. Why do you ask?”

“I saw him last night in the shopping district and he seemed…” Mumbo trailed off, eyes looking up in thought. “Unwell? I tried contacting you to talk last night but I think you were asleep. I would’ve went to Grian but… him and the detective agency… I didn’t want to stick my nose where it didn’t belong and get myself wrapped into another one of their messes they like to call investigations.”

“Unwell?” Xisuma echoed, backing up the conversation. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, absently clicking it in his right hand. “What do you mean?”

“Well he wasn’t paying attention and was trying to avoid talking to me, Doc, or Joe,” Mumbo explained.

At the mention of Joe, Xisuma flinched again. It was less so this time, just more tense in the shoulders and a click from his helmet, a pause in the methodical clicking of his pen before he put it to paper and started scribbling something out that Mumbo couldn’t read upside down. The way the letters bent at an angle from the speed at which Xisuma was writing certainly didn’t help him to discern what it was supposed to say.

“Can I be truthful with you?” Xisuma asked.

“I certainly hope so,” Mumbo said, slightly offended. 

“I was… watching them,” Xisuma said, voice low. “Iskall and Stress. I was trying to keep track of them during the lighting glitch problem because they had disappeared into their bases. Ren brought it to my attention before he disappeared as well, along with False. I know where they are now, I’ve managed to get their coordinates through commands but I’m not sure I should be bothering them about it.”

“I think it’s time to bother them about it,” Mumbo said. “They stopped talking in chat a while ago and Iskall wouldn’t even tell us what he’s been working on. That isn’t normal, X. This whole situation isn’t normal. It's one thing for there to be a war, it's one thing to be secretive, it's one thing to take a break. This though? Not talking? Disappearing? Actively avoiding people and practically running away when they try to talk to you? We should be concerned.  _ You _ should be concerned!”

“I am concerned I just-!” Xisuma lowered his voice and sigh, shoulders dropped. He set down the pen and took a few breaths, steadying himself. “I don’t like barging into people’s business. It feels intrusive and I don’t know how to do it well without causing a bigger problem. I’ve been trying to get information about the whole issue because it’s a lot  _ bigger _ than I thought it was in the first place. Can’t you see I’ve been trying? I haven’t left my office in days because I’ve been trying to figure this all out without causing a bigger issue than is already present.”

Mumbo’s defensive stance dropped slightly, a frown dragging down his expression. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry for being so harsh about it. I’m just worried.”

“I don’t blame you for being worried,” Xisuma said. “Here, let me explain.”

He pulled a stack off of the stack of morse code papers, pulling a paper out from the center of the pile. He placed it in the center of his desk and flattened it out despite already being flat. On it was a blueprint in various stages or layers. The first later was a four by four square of smooth stone with a three by three square of clear glass inside of it. The next layer was another four by four square of smooth stone with light grey glass panes in the center, a note next to it indicating that the glass panes here should be waterlogged. The next layer seemed to be made out of polished iron blocks, probably to create something like a mirror, with the four by four square made out of redstone blocked. The next layer was a solid four by four square made out of redstone blocks. There was a note indicating that the redstone blocks should be surrounded by blocks, the current design seeming to use dark oak trap doors as its barrier. The label at the top of the blueprint read “STICK GOD REALM PORTAL” in big, black ink.

“This is a portal to another dimension,” Xisuma said, pointing out the obvious. “It’s not a dimension anyone on the server apart from me has been in. Not the end, not the nether, not the overworld. It’s called the Reflection and its what can be on the other side of the mirror.” He tapping on the finished drawing of the portal at the bottom of the page. “This is the stable portal model I use to get in. This dimension is a lot different than the dimensions that we live in. I don’t control this one and its always a constant throughout every world we’ve been in. This is how I get the books to control the armor stands.

“In other worlds, you need extensive commands and permissions that usually only use admins have. By going through this portal into the Reflection, I can get the armor stand book. The reason this is possible is because who I call the Stick God, which is the god of that realm, can move the armor stands super easily, a lot easier than we can. He puts a little of his command magic into this book and I give permission for the rest of the server to use it, making it a lot easier than it could have been with just us without the book in the first place.

“What this god’s intentions are on the other side of the server are… unknown to me. Mostly. I have  _ information _ that he’s a trickster god. He uses this armor stands to mess with people Overworld side, make us think we’re seeing things. Sometimes when manipulating these reflections he makes mistakes. This god has the power to make players but he doesn’t use it. I don’t know  _ why _ but he doesn’t. If he makes even the smallest mistake when constructing an entity, they turn into sentient players that belong to the Reflection instead of the Overworld. Usually, he eradicates these players and while I don’t  _ like _ that he does it, it’s not something I can control. He’s a god, I’m an admin.

“From the information I gathered, the lighting glitches were caused by the Stick God. It was something like a distress call to any entities that he could control. This included any players he accidentally made. The players from the Reflection couldn’t see the lighting glitch so they wouldn’t notice if they were accidentally responding to this distress call.”

“You said that they couldn’t see the glitch?” Mumbo questioned. “Who is “they?””

Xisuma considered. He hadn’t realized the slip of the tongue. “It’s not my business,” he said instead. It wasn’t, not really. Ex was a player all on his own, even if with the explanation it was obvious where he came from. “But anyway, why a god would need a distress call is extremely worrying, and Stress and Iskall seemed very wary of their own reflections beforehand. I know for a fact that these players from the Reflection can replace your actual reflection. I’ve seen it happen to you once and a few other players in the past including Etho. It usually doesn’t last long. I’ve also seen the Stick God block players from seeing their reflection in the first place, which tends to freak them out. I don’t know exactly why Stress and Iskall seemed worried about their reflections but they started to seclude themselves when the distress call went out.”

“You think Iskall and Stress are Reflection players?” Mumbo said more as a statement than a question. Xisuma didn’t nod, but the lack of response was telling enough. “Why don’t you just ask them? Why can you tell in the first place?”

“I can’t tell why a player might join this world,” Xisuma said. “Player IDs look the same between Reflections and Players. Camera entities might also look like players sometimes. It’s really hard to tell the difference. The main problem with Reflection players versus Players is that they share an IP, which is a core part of a player ID. This only causes problems because if two entities with the same IP kill each other, the Universe will eradicate the one who died to compensate for the glitch.”

“Permadeath?” Mumbo asked. “I thought that was a myth, something meant to just scare players into being more careful about their death count.”

“Well, it should be a myth. In all normal worlds, it  _ is _ a myth. People only die of old age and certain illnesses. Killing a player should never result in permadeath. This is different. This is a glitch.”

“Wait so if Iskall and Stress are Reflections who are they reflections of?”

“I don’t have a clue,” Xisuma sighed, putting his head in his hands and feeling the cold glass through his gloves. “I didn’t see any ID changes when they first joined, and I usually keep close track at the beginning of the season. There were a lot of people on as well, a lot happening! Last season was constantly moving, I couldn’t keep track of every little thing.”

“So the real, or the first Iskall and Stress we knew might be on the other side of the mirror?” Mumbo asked. “Or dead? You don’t really think they’d kill anyone, do you?” Xisuma didn’t comment. He was silent with his head in his hands. Mumbo could hear the air filter working behind his head at a steady pace but no real difference. “Xisuma. Do you really think they would kill someone?”

“No,” Xisuma said with a sigh, lifting his head up. He leaned back in his chair, making the chair squeak and click as he went back enough to stare at the ceiling. “No, I don’t… It was probably a glitch. Maybe the old version of Stress and Iskall left or maybe they went into the mirror on accident. I don’t think they’d…  _ kill _ anyone.”

The two of them sat in silence for a second, letting all the information sink in slowly, carefully. It was a lot to process on both ends, a lot of what Xisuma had been thinking about in the past month finally sinking in. The implications finally were brought to the surface, making him really think about it, making him even more concerned.

“If you know where they are,” Mumbo said slowly, breaking the silence, “we should go check on them. If it’s not only Iskall and Stress we don’t know what they could be up to. They might end up doing something dangerous or server crashing.”

“Like you don’t crash the server on the regular,” Xisuma joked.

“Oh, be serious,” Mumbo shot back, though he was smiling. “Let’s go, I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

“You’re right,” Xisuma said, a slight groan in this voice as he pushed himself out of his chair.

He stretched his arms above his head and stretched, feeling his spine crack all the way down. Mumbo laughed as Xisuma basically froze in his stretch to try to recover before falling exaggeratedly limp in his entire upper half. Mumbo stood up himself, brushing himself off only to smear red dust on the pants of his suit. He grimaced at the sight, making a mental note to actually clean this suit before he went to sleep when he got around to doing either.

As Xisuma started to gather up some important papers (blueprints, morse code, random notes), a buzz alerted through their communicators. Xisuma furrowed his brow, reaching around to try to grab his communicator out of his back pocket while not dropping the stack of papers again. He didn’t quite manage it, letting a few papers drop onto the ground that he swore he would pick up after he checked the message. He could’ve sworn he had his communicator on mute, having routed his messages to the computer instead.

_ <EvilXisuma has joined the game> _

A loud crash, like someone falling down the stairs, came from the other side of the closed office door. There were a few seconds of processing silence as Xisuma and Mumbo both stared at the door in confusion. Mumbo was the first to the door in the rush over to it. He swung it open, accidentally letting the handle hit the wall next to it and leaving a slight dent in the terracotta where it started to chip away.

It was clear that someone had indeed fallen down the stairs in front of the office. A mess of white hair, red cloth, and gangly limbs. There was a helmet off to one side where it had fallen as well and rolled away. Evil Xisuma groaned from down on the floor. He gave off the scent of soot and dry dirt, like a burnt desert. He didn’t look too great either.

“Are you alright?” Mumbo asked worriedly, offering a hand as Ex lifted his head.

“Yeah,” Ex groaned.

He took Mumbo’s hand to pull himself up, nearly taking Mumbo down with him. He held his head with the other hand, cradling it from the likely concussion the fall down the stairs had caused. Xisuma came to the door right after, the pile of papers reconstructed in his arms he had an expression that looked like a mix of concern and amusement barely hidden behind the tinted visor.

“I told you not to let me ban you phased in with a block,” he scolded in a teasing way.

He took a second to take in how beat to hell Ex looked. A torn suit, a broken visor to his helmet, and a sizable bruise on the right side of his jaw. He wasn’t bleeding though, and he seemed to be physically fine other than the bruise and what damage he took falling down the stairs.

“What happened to you?” Xisuma asked.

“A fucking lot,” Ex answered in an annoyed tone.

**[TWO WEEKS AGO]**

“What happened here?” XI8B asked, looking out on the scorched earth that used to the Reflection. 

Not a building stood in damaged, most with scars from fire and chunks torn out from explosions. Most of the damage seemed to be done from one outward point, the center of it all seeming to come from spawn and moving in toward what remained the shopping district Reflection. There were some things rebuilt around the area. More glass was put up where there used to be glass. There were the broken figures of armor stands as far as the eye could see. A battle had clearly taken place. What had caused it?

XI8B could think of a few reasons, none of them sounded particularly good. The outcome was obvious. The air was still, the world was torn down, and Reflection players were the only ones left. Whatever had happened, the Master hadn’t won.

“Have you been living under a rock or something?” Risk asked as XI8B joined them around the fire. “There was a war! Obviously!”

“Well, I know that,” XI8B snapped back. “What was it over?”

“It’s it obvious?” Rest said in a steady monotone, a higher pitch than XI8B was expecting. “We didn’t want to get discarded.”

They let the silence stretch out for a bit, knowing the implications of the words. XI8B looked around the fire at the four of them. None of them looked at each other.

Rest, Stress’ Reflection it seemed, stared down at the fire, as still as stone. If she had emotions other than stoicness nobody would be able to tell. Her personality was as frosted over as her arms. Her eyes gave no clear emotion, just a swirling, six-prong fractal where her iris should be, where emotions should be.

Risk seemed a bit more emotive. He was almost passive in the way he leaned forward toward the fire, the flames reflecting eerily off his red eye. It reminded XI8B of Doc or… what did they call him? Had it been so long he couldn’t remember the names of his friends? Risk was just as focused on the fire as Rest, though behind his eyes was a conflict. Remorse, regret, mourning, and underlying determination below it all.

War was much more emotive than the other two. He was restless. Foot tapping, always moving, swaying front to back almost rhythmically. He was looking off into the distance. He had the same defect as XI8B did. Too pale, white hair, red eyes. War didn’t embrace it, he had his hair dyed brown with the white roots showing just barely. He wouldn’t look anyone in the eye, even when talking to them. He hated how different he was. The realization stung XI8B, who had always loved how different he was. It meant that he was alive. 

True was True, but different, really different. Her hair was bleach blonde, almost white, and cut short. Her eyes were what stood out to XI8B. By all accounts, they shouldn’t have looked like that. They were reflective, almost glowing. It should have been a dead giveaway from the others than she wasn’t correct, she wasn’t just ”defective” like they were. Such magic to reflect light off a person’s eyes was abnormal even in Reflections. It was magic, plain and simple. XI8B hypothesized that it had something to do with being on the wrong plane for so long, or maybe magical scarring. 

“Is this all there is left?” XI8B asked, almost appalled. “What happened to Theo? Jambie? Rate? BadTimes? Phase? Where happened?”

Risk and War gave XI8B weird looks as soon as he started listing off the names, causing a pit to form in his stomach. How much had he missed? How had been discarded while he was off in the Overworld? How many people had he left behind?

True gave a quick scoff and shook her head, looking down at her feet. XI8B deciding to look to her for answers. Out of everyone in the circle, she was the only one that XI8B actually recognized. She had a sickly smile on her face, one that held onto knowledge and not happiness. A sickening knowledge that he didn’t like the feeling of.

“Theo was discarded right after you left,” she explained. “Was caught fixing Rate’s arm again. Both of them. Gone. BadTimes was caught breaking mirrors every time he accidentally saw the other side. He kind of went crazy. Phase and Jambie…”

She trailed off and looked toward Risk, who had a slight grimace on his face. “Phase, Jambie, Grifter, W, and Mount were with us before the fight,” he said in a solemn tone. “They weren’t with us when it was over.”

Three names he didn’t recognize. He could make a guess, though. Maybe what they had looked like? He wouldn’t know for certain, though. He had never seen them, never met them, never helped them. How many people did he just leave to get discarded? To disappear during a battle he didn’t orchestrate? 

“Where did you come from, anyway?” War asked, seeming slightly agitated from the way his consents snapped. “I’ve never seen you before but you know people that I don’t even remember. Rather convenient to just pop up after a war.”

“I didn’t know the war was even happening,” XI8B explained sincerely. Did he though? He felt the call to arms like every other entity that had disappeared. Just because he hadn’t crossed didn’t mean that he was clueless to the fact that something was about to go wrong. “I was on the-”

“He’s been away,” True interrupted. XI8B’s gaze shot to her. She was staring down at the fire with a glare that was surely meant for him. “Because of his status as the Reflection player of the server admin back in the Overworld, the Master wasn’t allowed to just discard him.”

“Oh so the golden boy gets special treatment,” Risk said, rolling his eyes. 

XI8B scoffed. “Hardly,” he said, playing along. True’s glare relaxed slightly. “Cooped up and hidden away. Not exactly the highlight of anyway.” He technically wasn’t lying. He had been hiding from the Reflection and usually cooped himself up in his own builds nowadays. It had been his own doing, but it wasn’t a lie.

“Well good thing you’re out in time for the next step,” Rest spoke up, her voice still eerie and light.

“Next step?” XI8B questioned. “Was this whole war the first step?”

“Well as fun as it was to kill a god,” True explained smugly, “I personally don’t want to spend another minute stuck in this hell of a dimension.” She turned at the hip and looked XI8B directly in the eye. They swirled with malice and determination, a trait that all True and the four Reflections share. “Next step: Cross to the Overworld. And we won’t even have to do it ourselves.”


	10. Chapter 10

_ “Why won’t you just talk to me?” _

_ “What are you talking about? Who are you? Wasn’t your name Miss Symmetry or something?” _

_ “What? No, stop lying you butt.” _

_ “I’m not lying. I don’t know who you are.” _

_ “It’s me! FalseSymmetry! Come on, you can’t just ignore me forever.” _

_ “I haven’t been ignoring you.” _

_ “You’re a lot better liar than Theo, I’ll give you that.” _

_ “...” _

_ “XI8B I just want to talk. Can we just talk?” _

_ “...” _

_ “I didn’t hurt her. I swear I didn’t. I barely even touched her. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” _

_ “I know you didn’t.” _

_ “Did you see her? Is she alright?” _

_ “She’s scared. I don’t think… I don’t think  _ he _ is going to get rid of her. It's not his place. If  _ you _ ever come back, though...” _

_ “I’d be deader than a zombie.” _

_ “...” _

_ “Why are you mad at me? It wasn’t my fault what had happened. She tried to kill me!” _

_ “Oh because something reaching through a mirror and crawling through like some sort of demon is entirely reassuring.” _

_ “Well, I guess when you put it that way…” _

_ “I’m not mad.” _

_ “You’re just disappointed.” _

_ “No, I’m not either. I swear. I just don’t want to remember what it was like back there.” _

_ “So I’m just a walking reminder, huh? Not even a reminder of the good parts?” _

_ “All reminders are bad reminders." _

_ “You’re a jerk, did you know that? ...Fine. See you never.” _

* * *

“How are we supposed to cross into the Overworld?” XI8B asked, dread crawling up his spine. “The only one who knows how to make a portal is Xisuma.”

“Not the only one,” Rest spoke up, which seemed to be a rarity. She was rather quiet compared to the others in the group. “I’ve seen them.”

“Stress? Why would Stress be making a portal?” he pushed.

“Not Stress,” Risk piped in. “False is making a portal.”

XI8B’s eyes immediately looked to True. Her face was neutral for the most part. She seemed to be thinking, staring blankly off into space. He knew what she must’ve been thinking. Revenge, probably. Not the same things others were looking for. They were for a new place to stay, a place away from this wasteland of soot and death. It reminded them of everything bad in their lives. He certainly didn’t blame them. True, on the other hand, had an entirely different objective in mind: to force False back into the mirror.

“Why… would she be making a portal?” he asked.

He didn’t have any idea why she would want to go back. She hated it here more than anyone else had. She’d been more determined to leave than Theo or Jambie or Phase or anyone else that had crossed her path. As far as False knew, the world was the same as she left it. Despite the call to action that had rung out, the glitches that even XI8B barely managed to stay away from outside of spectator mode, nothing more had changed on the Overworld side that he knew off.

Stress and Iskall seemed so scared of their reflections before he left though. By that time, the glitches had stopped for the most part. The war was probably over by then. Only some minor distress calls had rung out and were messing with things Overworld side. Actual glitches, remnants of a broken world on the other side. Rest and Risk were standing right here, the very things that Stress and Iskall were probably afraid of. He didn’t blame them either. Blank eyes and frost-covered hands. Glowing red eye and jittery, not quite right movements. No smiles, no emotion, only an almost angry look from the other side of the mirror. If Risk and Rest were messing with their counterparts so much, War was likely also doing the same with Ren. It might’ve been the reason for the dye in his hair that was starting to fade and grow out. 

“She’s trying to find out what’s wrong on our side of the mirror,” True explained. “Risk and Rest were spying on Iskall and Stress. Ren saw War only twice before War said he didn’t want to show up in the mirror anymore. We’ve been trying to freak them out, make them build a portal for us to cross.”

“And what about you?” XI8B asked.

“What  _ about _ me?” True countered. “I stopped the reflections from showing up for Ren and False so they’d still be freaked out.”

“Why don’t you want to see her yourself?”

“You know perfectly well why!” True yelled, standing up from the log she was sitting on. Her hands were clenched tight, knuckles white. “I told you what happened! She wouldn’t be freaked out in the slightest if I showed up in that mirror. This way,  _ this way _ , she’ll be scared. Scared of what the Master might be doing. Scared enough to cross back over!”

XI8B was leaning backward on the log, trying to get as far away from True as possible. Her eyes had started to glow as bright as stars, staring him down with an intensity that shook him to his core. He was surprised, though. Surprised that she would go out and tell them that she wasn’t a reflection, that she wasn’t normal by their standards. XI8B looked around the circle, trying to see if just maybe they were shocked by what she had just said. It wasn’t the reaction he wanted. They were just leaning backward, more shocked by the outburst than the words that were in it.

“You need to stop asking questions,  _ XI8B,” _ she said through clenched teeth, “and actually  _ help _ us get to the other side. You don’t want to be stuck in this  _ hellscape _ any longer than the rest of us,  _ right? _ So start acting like it and get a move on.”

“Wait, we’re leaving now?” War asked, straightening up. “I thought we would have more time? Wait until sunrise?”

“Do  you want to continue breathing in this gunk?” she gestured to the burnt world around them. To be fair, it smelled horrible. “The further we go, the less damage there will be. With how far the portal is it's going to be a long time until we get there, but we should be there before the portal opens.”

Rest got up and dusted her pants of idly. She stretched her arms above her head, everyone in the circle heard her shoulders near pop out of their sockets. As everyone else got their supplies together and boats made, she walked all the way over to the shore. By the time she got back, everyone was almost packed up. She came in holding a nearly overflowing bucket of water in her arms which she unceremoniously dumped all over the burning fire. The flames were doused instantly, causing the surrounding area to feel immediately as if it was freezing, even with the still-burning remains of the mirrored shopping district. 

The five of them walked over to the ocean in silence. War and Rest were talking quietly amongst each other as True and Risk set their own boats in the water. The water itself looked darker than it should have been. The sand underneath wasn’t yellow or pale white, but a soot-colored grey that stuck to the bottom of XI8B’s boots, caking in between the lugs of the outsole.

“I’m gonna be the lookout,” War proclaimed.

“Why would we need a lookout?” True asked, exasperation evident in her tone as she turned away from her boat.

“Phantoms and drowned,” War said.

Rest got into a birch plank boat and War got in behind her. Their boat was slightly bigger than the others, making room for the extra person and weight. True sighed but didn’t argue, getting into her own boat which was made of oak. Risk was giving a small smile to the others behind their backs, a soft sort of smile that gave insight into the friendship of the four. “Arguments” like these were likely fairly normal. Risk seemed the kindest out of all of them anyway. As the others got in their boats, Risk walked over to XI8B and handed him a fourth boat, one made out of spruce like Risk’s was. He didn’t want to share a boat, but he was willing to help so XI8B wouldn’t have to go scavenge for random materials. He also handed XI8B a sleeping bag, heavy and dyed red. The inside was soft and well insulated. XI8B also saw that the others had similar sleeping bags in the back of their own boats. So they _were_ going to take breaks.

XI8B got into his boat last out of the five of them. True, out of the kindness of her heart or just to keep an eye on him, didn’t make any move to leave until XI8B seemed completely settled in. 

They sailed for days in almost complete silence. There were occasional breaks in the silence. True or War asking if anyone needed a break, War diving into the water to take out a drowned with a trident as Rest yelled at him to be careful since they’d have to run back to spawn for him if he died, phantoms screeching overhead that War would take out with a few bow shots, the water sloshing up at them, and various complaints for others to be more careful when rowing as to not fling water into another’s boat. Throughout the boating, True stayed in the back, XI8B in front of her, War and Rest in front of him, and Risk leading the pack.

The most they talked was when they stepped onto dry land. The five would tie their boats to stakes they set into the ground and light a fire near the ocean, but far enough away that high tide wouldn’t wash them away. Most of the talking would be in low murmurs. Asking someone to get wood, questions of how far they were, and keeping track of the days. XI8B was often the one asked to look after the boats and get rid of any mobs that wandered in, especially drowned. Everything he was assigned to do, though, he was never at any risk of dying. When phantoms came, War took care of them. When drowned launched tridents, Rest dived under. Sometimes he was tasked to go get firewood but it was often with another person. Usually, that person was True who glared at his back every time he turned around. 

It took a week and a half to reach their destination. 

XI8B had been half asleep, rowing became second nature to breathing. He stared out and looked at the back of War and Rest’s boat, trailing after them as his mind drifted off to places unknown, daydreaming as his arms moved on their own. The sun was setting and everyone in the party was getting tired. Twenty minutes ago, War had proposed they stop for the night at the next sight of land. True hadn’t said anything about it, eyes fixed on the horizon. They took it as a yes.

The next sight of land was peculiar. There were no trees, but spare, white stalks shooting out of the ground, topped by red, white, and brown. The ground was covered with tightly woven purple roots. Behind him, XI8B heard a sharp gasp come from True. It barely prepared him for the yelling that came next, nearly knocking him out of his boat from shock. He barely caught his oar in time and held it close to his chest.

“There it is!” True yelled, sitting up in her boat and leaning forward. “Iskall’s mushroom island!”

All at once, they started to row faster than they had the entire trip. In her excitement, True pulled in front of XI8B, War, and Rest. At the front of the pack. Risk sped up to match her, not letting her get ahead of him. Risk hit the shore first, throwing himself from the boat from the impact. He was laughing, though, as he brushed the spores off of his shirt and gathered his boat onto the sandless shore. True hit the shore more gracefully, pulling her boat onto land with her ore dug five inches in the dirt. XI8B, War, and Rest got out of their boats as they had before, ankle-deep in water and dragging the boats to shore by hand. By the time the three had tied their boats down, True and Risk were already exploring.

The area itself was already built, like the rest of the Reflection. It looked very industrial. There were a villager breeder and trading hall, a gunpowder farm, and a sugarcane farm. It was a shame, really, that those on the Overworld side didn’t know what they were providing to the other side of their reflection. Farms to help their Reflections, buildings to house them. Reflections did almost nothing to build, to farm, or to help. While they wouldn’t affect the Overworld, the Overworld affected them.

XI8B looked over it all and felt the pit in his stomach grow bigger and bigger. He felt his limbs shaking and ears ringing but he didn’t know if it was really happening. It was far away, everything was far away. He felt like he was in spectator mode, watching someone else's body move and look around. His fists clenched tight, attempting to dig his nails into his palm and not realizing that the fabric of his gloves was prevented him from doing so.

He was snapped out of it by a hand landing on his shoulders. It almost felt like a friendly pat, but the aggressiveness of it was obvious. He jumped into it, feeling his heart leap into his throat.

“Say anything to them that contradicts me,” True whispered just loud enough for him to hear, “and I’ll send you back to spawn faster than you can stop me. I’m still the queen of heads around here.”

Her hand left his shoulder, leaving a cold patch as XI8B continued to drift away from reality. His feet moved, he set out his sleeping bag, and he followed War out to gather firewood, sand, and gravel. 

* * *

“Ready?” Ren asked, hand held tightly around the lever.

“As I’ll ever be,” False said with a smile. “Everyone remember what I said?”

“Don’t kill your Reflection,” Stress said, holding her trident with an iron grip.

“Don’t go through the portal,” Iskall piped in.

“Close the portal if you take more than ten minutes,” Ren said, solemnly.

“And close the portal if Xisuma shows up,” Iskall ended, picking up his sword and diving the tip into the dirt.

False smiled at them. Her hands were shaking, her breathing was heavy, but at least they were here to make sure nothing could go wrong. They were her failsafe. She took a deep breath and stepped toward the portal, great hesitance weighing down her every step.

“Opening the portal in three.”

She closed her eyes and gulped down hard. She could hear her pulse in her ears.

“Two.”

She didn’t want to cross over. She didn’t have to find out why things seemed to be going wrong. She could just leave it.

“One.”

But if XI8B wouldn’t talk about it what other choice did she have? She had to make sure whatever hell was on that side wouldn’t cross over. It was for the safety of her friends.

“Opening portal!”

She heard the click of the lever and the piston activate, pushing the last redstone block into place. The portal made a ringing noise, low and high pitched. The others covered their ears in surprise as she ran toward it and jumped directly in.

False was met with familiar faces, but so, so different.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me @endstoned on tumblr for more hermitcraft related content! Updates to this fic will be unscheduled.


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